Localization
This is the main article on localization (often also referred to as l10n). It is meant to offer guidance, as well as cross-link other relevant articles, to customize settings of an Arch Linux installation to work with any supported language.
The article makes use of subpages for instructions specific for languages:
Subpages without an English counterpart:
Contents
Fonts
For the list of available font packages in Arch Linux see the Fonts article.
Locale
See Locale.
Keyboard layouts
See Keyboard configuration in console and Keyboard configuration in Xorg.
Input methods
From Fedora:I18N/InputMethods:
- An input method (IM) is a way to input a certain set of characters and symbols, usually because a keyboard does not directly support them.
Most input methods are part of an IM framework, which lets the user easily switch between multiple input methods. These input methods are either included with the framework or packaged separately. Programs implementing input methods are called IM engines. The input methods available for a language are listed in the respective language subpage.
The available IM frameworks are:
- Fcitx — Input method framework with extension support.
- gcin — Input method server supporting various input methods.
- Hime — Universal input method platform.
- IBus — Intelligent Input Bus, a next generation input framework.
- SCIM — The Smart Common Input Method platform.
- uim — Multilingual input method framework to provide simple, easily extensible and high code-quality input method development platform, and useful input method environment for users of desktop and embedded platforms.
Unmaintained:
- Dasom — Multilingual input method framework.
See also Wikipedia:List of input methods for Unix platforms.
Input method engines
Language | Back-end | Fcitx | IBus | SCIM | uim | gcin | Hime |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vietnamese | UniKey | fcitx-unikey | ibus-unikey | scim-unikey | - | - | - |
Others | m17n-lib | fcitx-m17n | ibus-m17n | scim-m17n | depends | ? | ? |
GTK IM-module
Disabling GTK IM modules (without uninstalling)
First some background information on how GTK loads and selects IM modules:
- Specifying an IM module
-
GTK_IM_MODULE
environment variable- GTK_IM_MODULE="scim" gedit
-
XSETTINGS
value of Gtk/IMModule
- File listing possible IM modules
-
GTK_IM_MODULE_FILE
environment variable - RC files
/etc/gtk-2.0/gtk.immodules
If no IM module is specified (either via GTK_IM_MODULE or in XSETTINGS), then GTK will automatically choose a suitable immodule from an internal listing (GTK_IM_MODULE_FILE... etc). This chosen IM module will depend on the software installed, and will be picked in a completely arbitrary order.
For a listing of installed GTK+ immodules, see
/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/
/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules/
XSETTINGS provides a common API to configure common desktop settings. Similar database configuration systems such as gnome-config, GConf, liproplist and the kde configuration system already exist, however XSETTINGS unifies these systems. XSETTINGS daemons, such as gnome-settings-daemon from gnome, xfce-mcs-manager from xfce4, and other from openbox, etc, push desktop-environment-specific data to the XSETTINGS database. Technically, XSETTINGS is a simple storage medium intended to store only strings, integers and colors. When an XSETTINGS manager quits, the clients restore all settings to their default values.
The if GTK+ has debugging enabled, the loaded modules can be seen by
$ application --gtk-debug modules
Otherwise, the modules can be seen by scanning the linked libraries in gdb after attaching to the process.
To prevent GTK+ from loading any IM modules
- set
GTK_IM_MODULE
to the empty string - set
GTK_IM_MODULE
to "gtk-im-context-simple"
QT immodule (> QT 4.0.0)
Disabling QT IM modules (without uninstalling)
QT will load the IM module specified in QT_IM_MODULE
, and if unset attempt to fall back on XIM.
-
QT_IM_MODULE
environment variable - XIM
To disable input method module loading in QT, export QT_IM_MODULE="simple"
.