Ubuntu Karmic Chinese Input Method

After upgraded my Ubuntu to karmic, I couldn't find my SCIM keyboard icon to switch the keyboard input method anymore. To my surprise, the prefer input switcher has been switched from SCIM to this new iBus.

There's not much information on this yet. I played around a bit, trying to install a Chinese pinyin input. And I found 4, 2 of them do nothing for me (and I couldn't find informaion about how to make them work ;-( Both "py" and "PinYin" work perfect for me, I'm particular impressed by "PinYin", which support input by phases. If you keep typing in "PnYin", it will just keep guessing about what you are trying.

Here's the detail step-by-step about how to setup iBus on Karmic for my favorite Chinese "PinYin" input method.

1) Go to "System \ Administration \ Language Support" and select "ibus" for "Keyboard input method system:"

2) Click on "Install / Remove Languages ..." and make sure that you have Chinese language installed.
3) Now you are ready for iBus, click on "System \ Preferences \ IBus Preferences". Click on "Input Method" tab when the window pop up.

4) Now, click on "Select an input method" drop-down combo box and pick "Chinese \ PinYin".

5) And you are done! For me, it didn't work until I reboot the box. Try on a editable area, and click on the keyboard icon on your notification area to switch the input method.

Try it out, it will show simplified Chinese and/or traditional Chinese depends on what languages that you have installed on your system. And this "PinYin" has an additional feature than "py" is that it can also accept phase input!

enjoy,