SCIM Problem In Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

I have recently upgraded from Ubuntu Feisty to Gutsy, everything went smoothly expect one thing – the SCIM input support. Somehow I can’t switch to Chinese language input method anymore after the upgrade. It was working perfectly in Feisty. The SCIM icon in the system tray is just a disabled button with the only option is to right click to reload the configuration and change settings. However, after settings are updated and reloaded, nothing happens, I still can’t change from English to Chinese PinYin. After doing some googling, I found a few solutions. I will post the simplest, the one I tried and worked solution here. Firstly you will need to install scim-bridge using apt:

[email protected]$ sudo apt-get install scim-bridge

This essentially allow you to access other applications using SCIM input method. Then you need to edit the scim config file using your favourite editor:

[email protected]$ sudo vim /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim

Find and change from

GTK_IM_MODULE=xim

into

GTK_IM_MODULE="scim-bridge"

Finally you need to restart your system to make the changes into effect. If it still not working, you might need to start SCIM manually:

[email protected]$ scim -d

I noticed that this works for most of the applications, like Firefox, Thunderbird, Shell, Openoffice and Pidgin etc, however, it is still not working in a few of them, like Kate. but I think it is better than before when I can’t use it at all. If this guide doesn’t work for you, maybe you can try a more complicated solution in Adrian Hoe’s Blog. Hope this helps.