CentOS - Jul 2017 - Installing support for Chinese text in Centos 7

On 05/27/2017 10:15 PM, H wrote:
> On 04/07/2017 10:12 AM, H wrote:
>> I installed fcitx-pinyn, and its dependencies, and I now have ZH as a
choice but have not been able to type pinyin and get a list of Chinese
characters to choose among like I could on CentOS 6. Does anyone have it
working?
>>
>>
>> On 4/2/2017 11:27 AM, H wrote:
>>> Thank you, I just discovered your post. I just installed
fcitx-pinyin to try out.
>>>
>>> On 02/25/2017 09:04 PM, Scott Robbins wrote:
>>>> On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at 08:51:41PM -0500, Scott Robbins wrote:
>>>>> On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at 08:42:43PM -0500, H wrote:
>>>>>> I have just done a minimal installation of Centos7
followed by X Windows and the Mate desktop on a workstation. Although the
default language is English, I would like to be able to write Chinese text in
various applications.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I seem to remember this was very easy to do in Centos 6
and Gnome: possibly only requiring only a simple 'yum groupinstall
"Chinese Support"' after which I could use iBus to switch between
languages. This does not seem to work in Centos 7.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> These days, I use fcitx-anthy on CentOS (which took some
work to set up,
>>>>> but ibus-anthy, at least, (for Japanese) worked pretty
well. I have
>>>>> instructions, again, for Japanese, but quite possibly
applicable at
>>>>> http://srobb.net/jpninpt.html#CentOS6
>>>> I'm going to add that a quick look through pkgs.org shows
that CentOS-7x
>>>> does have packages for fcitx-pinyin and a few other Chinese
engines, and it
>>>> might be worth considering making the switch. It seems (general
impression
>>>> on my part) to be replacing ibus in a lot of places, in the
same way ibus
>>>> gradually replaced scim.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CentOS mailing list
>>> CentOS at centos.org
>>> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> CentOS mailing list
>> CentOS at centos.org
>> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
> Still have not solved my problem above, i.e., after installing fcitx I can
switch between US English and a European language but not to Chinese.
>
> I run the Mate Desktop on CentOS 7 and the configuration tool for fcitx
that has been installed in the Settings Panel complains that a
fcitx-config/fcitx-configtool program is missing.
>
> I have not been able to find that program on the 'net and am hoping
someone else - anyone - is using fcitx for input of an Asian language in
CentOS7/Mate...
>
> By the way, LibreOffice seems to have a couple of Chinese fonts installed,
I am not sure I need to install additional fonts for the OS?
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
After leaving this along for several weeks I made another attempt at trying to
get fcitx up and running on CentOS 7 and the Mate desktop. I discovered that
there is a diagnostic tool, fcitx-diagnose, that provided some additional
information.

One of the missing programs was the fcitx-configtool that lacked the GUI part
and that so far I have been unable to find on the 'net. It seems that the
appropriate GUI tool would be fcitx-config-gtk3 and is necessary for configuring
fcitx.

Does anyone have fcitx-config-gtk3 up and running?

I have to vent and say that I am very, very surprised that this tool for
entering Asian text on CentOS 7 is so poorly developed, poorly documented and
poorly packaged. One would have thought that the Asian market for RHEL/CentOS 7
would be of sufficient importance for all relevant programs to be available in
one of the key repositories.

I am under the impression that fcitx, considered the replacement of iBus used in
CentOS 6 - and which worked flawlessly - has not been updated since 2013.
Further, the developers have not bothered with a proper support website, instead
most information is absent.

On Sun, Jul 16, 2017 at 11:23:08PM -0400, H wrote:
> On 05/27/2017 10:15 PM, H wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > > On 4/2/2017 11:27 AM, H wrote:
> > > > Thank you, I just discovered your post. I just installed
fcitx-pinyin to try out.
> > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > These days, I use fcitx-anthy on CentOS (which
took some work to set up,
> > > > > > but ibus-anthy, at least, (for Japanese) worked
pretty well. I have
> > > > > > instructions, again, for Japanese, but quite
possibly applicable at
> > > > > > http://srobb.net/jpninpt.html#CentOS6
> > > > > I'm going to add that a quick look through pkgs.org
shows that CentOS-7x
> > > > > does have packages for fcitx-pinyin and a few other
Chinese engines, and it
> > > > > might be worth considering making the switch. It seems
(general impression
> > > > > on my part) to be replacing ibus in a lot of places, in
the same way ibus
> > > > > gradually replaced scim.
> > Still have not solved my problem above, i.e., after installing fcitx I
can switch between US English and a European language but not to Chinese.
> > 
> > I run the Mate Desktop on CentOS 7 and the configuration tool for
fcitx that has been installed in the Settings Panel complains that a
fcitx-config/fcitx-configtool program is missing.
> > 
> > I have not been able to find that program on the 'net and am
hoping someone else - anyone - is using fcitx for input of an Asian language in
CentOS7/Mate...
> > 
Yes, me, as mentioned above.  

Ok, do this, which is also described on my page under some other
distributions.  
Quit X. 
Go into ~/.config/fcitx.
Edit profile, looking for pinyan:False. Change that False to True and
startx again.  It should then show as available.  

I think, when I decided to use fcitx on CentOS-7, I already knew about this
method so never even looked for configtool.



 > By the way, LibreOffice seems to have a couple of Chinese fonts installed,
I am not sure I need to install additional fonts for the
OS?
> > 
Once you get it running, you can see.  Possibly not.

-- 
Scott Robbins
PGP keyID EB3467D6
( 1B48 077D 66F6 9DB0 FDC2 A409 FA54 EB34 67D6 )
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys EB3467D6

On Sun, Jul 16, 2017 at 11:23:08PM -0400, H wrote:
> 
> After leaving this along for several weeks I made another attempt at trying
to get fcitx up and running on CentOS 7 and the Mate desktop. I discovered that
there is a diagnostic tool, fcitx-diagnose, that provided some additional
information.
> 
> One of the missing programs was the fcitx-configtool that lacked the GUI
part and that so far I have been unable to find on the 'net. It seems that
the appropriate GUI tool would be fcitx-config-gtk3 and is necessary for
configuring fcitx.
> 
> Does anyone have fcitx-config-gtk3 up and running?
As mentioned, I don't have it working, but it shouldn't be
necessary..
> 
> I have to vent and say that I am very, very surprised that this tool for
entering Asian text on CentOS 7 is so poorly developed, poorly documented and
poorly packaged. One would have thought that the Asian market for RHEL/CentOS 7
would be of sufficient importance for all relevant programs to be available in
one of the key repositories.
> 
It takes developers, probably unpaid, to do it as they can.  
I would guess it's RedHat, an American company, that decides what goes in
official repositories and doesn't see a need for it.   

> I am under the impression that fcitx, considered the replacement of iBus
used in CentOS 6 - and which worked flawlessly - has not been updated since
2013. Further, the developers have not bothered with a proper support website,
instead most information is absent.
It seems to be. I first tried it when I had to write a script to get ibus
to switch between English and Japanese.  

Seriously, I would file a RHEL bug report as RFA (Request for enhancement).
Now that I mention that, I may file a request to create a package for
fcitx-anthy.

-- 
Scott Robbins
PGP keyID EB3467D6
( 1B48 077D 66F6 9DB0 FDC2 A409 FA54 EB34 67D6 )
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys EB3467D6

On 07/17/2017 05:54 AM, Scott Robbins wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 16, 2017 at 11:23:08PM -0400, H wrote:
>> On 05/27/2017 10:15 PM, H wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 4/2/2017 11:27 AM, H wrote:
>>>>> Thank you, I just discovered your post. I just installed
fcitx-pinyin to try out.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> These days, I use fcitx-anthy on CentOS (which took
some work to set up,
>>>>>>> but ibus-anthy, at least, (for Japanese) worked
pretty well. I have
>>>>>>> instructions, again, for Japanese, but quite
possibly applicable at
>>>>>>> http://srobb.net/jpninpt.html#CentOS6
>>>>>> I'm going to add that a quick look through pkgs.org
shows that CentOS-7x
>>>>>> does have packages for fcitx-pinyin and a few other
Chinese engines, and it
>>>>>> might be worth considering making the switch. It seems
(general impression
>>>>>> on my part) to be replacing ibus in a lot of places, in
the same way ibus
>>>>>> gradually replaced scim.
>
>>> Still have not solved my problem above, i.e., after installing
fcitx I can switch between US English and a European language but not to
Chinese.
>>>
>>> I run the Mate Desktop on CentOS 7 and the configuration tool for
fcitx that has been installed in the Settings Panel complains that a
fcitx-config/fcitx-configtool program is missing.
>
>>> I have not been able to find that program on the 'net and am
hoping someone else - anyone - is using fcitx for input of an Asian language in
CentOS7/Mate...
>>>
> Yes, me, as mentioned above.
>
> Ok, do this, which is also described on my page under some other
> distributions.
> Quit X.
> Go into ~/.config/fcitx.
> Edit profile, looking for pinyan:False. Change that False to True and
> startx again.  It should then show as available.
>
> I think, when I decided to use fcitx on CentOS-7, I already knew about this
> method so never even looked for configtool.
>
>
>
>   > By the way, LibreOffice seems to have a couple of Chinese fonts
installed, I am not sure I need to install additional fonts for the OS?
> Once you get it running, you can see.  Possibly not.
>
Scott, great, thank you very much! Changing the pinyin setting to true from
false allowed me to use pinyin to type Chinese into a terminal window. One
correction, though, the setting is not in ~/.config/fcitx but in
~/.config/profile.

I only had time for a very quick test of typing pinyin into a blank LibreOffice
document since I am leaving on a trip. This did not work, however.

How do I get this working? In the font selection listbox there are a couple of -
ugly-looking - simplified Chinese fonts but I could not get it to work. Do you
have any suggestions here?

On 07/17/2017 06:11 AM, Scott Robbins wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 16, 2017 at 11:23:08PM -0400, H wrote:
>> After leaving this along for several weeks I made another attempt at
trying to get fcitx up and running on CentOS 7 and the Mate desktop. I
discovered that there is a diagnostic tool, fcitx-diagnose, that provided some
additional information.
>>
>
>> One of the missing programs was the fcitx-configtool that lacked the
GUI part and that so far I have been unable to find on the 'net. It seems
that the appropriate GUI tool would be fcitx-config-gtk3 and is necessary for
configuring fcitx.
>>
>> Does anyone have fcitx-config-gtk3 up and running?
> As mentioned, I don't have it working, but it shouldn't be
necessary..
>> I have to vent and say that I am very, very surprised that this tool
for entering Asian text on CentOS 7 is so poorly developed, poorly documented
and poorly packaged. One would have thought that the Asian market for
RHEL/CentOS 7 would be of sufficient importance for all relevant programs to be
available in one of the key repositories.
>>
> It takes developers, probably unpaid, to do it as they can.
> I would guess it's RedHat, an American company, that decides what goes
in
> official repositories and doesn't see a need for it.
>
>
>> I am under the impression that fcitx, considered the replacement of
iBus used in CentOS 6 - and which worked flawlessly - has not been updated since
2013. Further, the developers have not bothered with a proper support website,
instead most information is absent.
> It seems to be. I first tried it when I had to write a script to get ibus
> to switch between English and Japanese.
>
> Seriously, I would file a RHEL bug report as RFA (Request for enhancement).
> Now that I mention that, I may file a request to create a package for
> fcitx-anthy.
>
Unfortunately I do not have a RHEL license, only using CentOS, but it would be
great if you could file the RFA.

In the meantime, we should look at compiling fcitx-config-gtk3. Unfortunately,
my skills in this are are very rudimentary...

On Sun, Jul 16, 2017 at 11:23:08PM -0400, H wrote:
> After leaving this along for several weeks I made another attempt at
> trying to get fcitx up and running on CentOS 7 and the Mate
> desktop. I discovered that there is a diagnostic tool,
> fcitx-diagnose, that provided some additional information. 
> 
> One of the missing programs was the fcitx-configtool that lacked the
> GUI part and that so far I have been unable to find on the 'net. It
> seems that the appropriate GUI tool would be fcitx-config-gtk3 and
> is necessary for configuring fcitx. 
> 
> Does anyone have fcitx-config-gtk3 up and running?
> 
> I have to vent and say that I am very, very surprised that this tool
> for entering Asian text on CentOS 7 is so poorly developed, poorly
> documented and poorly packaged. One would have thought that the
> Asian market for RHEL/CentOS 7 would be of sufficient importance for
> all relevant programs to be available in one of the key
> repositories. 
> 
> I am under the impression that fcitx, considered the replacement of
> iBus used in CentOS 6 - and which worked flawlessly - has not been
> updated since 2013. Further, the developers have not bothered with a
> proper support website, instead most information is absent. 
My only suggestion is to try to set this up under the GNOME3 desktop
provided by CentOS, rather than what is built out of EPEL.  It's the
only desktop that has had testing by Red Hat.  MATE is provided by
EPEL as a volunteer effort, and isn't considered part of CentOS.

I encountered the same problem when I was running Cinnamon as my
desktop, I was able to add several Chinese input methods but I
couldn't actually use them.  I switched to Gnome 3 and it just worked
out of the box.

-- 
Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>

Am Dienstag, den 18.07.2017, 09:17 -0400 schrieb Jonathan
Billings:
> On Sun, Jul 16, 2017 at 11:23:08PM -0400, H wrote:
> > After leaving this along for several weeks I made another attempt at
> > trying to get fcitx up and running on CentOS 7 and the Mate
> > desktop. I discovered that there is a diagnostic tool,
> > fcitx-diagnose, that provided some additional information. 
> > 
> > One of the missing programs was the fcitx-configtool that lacked the
> > GUI part and that so far I have been unable to find on the 'net.
It
> > seems that the appropriate GUI tool would be fcitx-config-gtk3 and
> > is necessary for configuring fcitx. 
> > 
> > Does anyone have fcitx-config-gtk3 up and running?
> > 
> > I have to vent and say that I am very, very surprised that this tool
> > for entering Asian text on CentOS 7 is so poorly developed, poorly
> > documented and poorly packaged. One would have thought that the
> > Asian market for RHEL/CentOS 7 would be of sufficient importance for
> > all relevant programs to be available in one of the key
> > repositories. 
> > 
> > I am under the impression that fcitx, considered the replacement of
> > iBus used in CentOS 6 - and which worked flawlessly - has not been
> > updated since 2013. Further, the developers have not bothered with a
> > proper support website, instead most information is absent. 
> 
> My only suggestion is to try to set this up under the GNOME3 desktop
> provided by CentOS, rather than what is built out of EPEL.  It's the
> only desktop that has had testing by Red Hat.  MATE is provided by
> EPEL as a volunteer effort, and isn't considered part of CentOS.
> 
> I encountered the same problem when I was running Cinnamon as my
> desktop, I was able to add several Chinese input methods but I
> couldn't actually use them.  I switched to Gnome 3 and it just worked
> out of the box.
> 
Only 10 Users here :-) on that Cluster and everything behind of diffrent
firewall.

Cinnamon => Keyboard level to dbus, I think.

Andy