HOW TO: Install Japanese and Chinese IME on Arch or Artix Linux KDE Plasma Wayland DE
I always waste a bunch of time trying to get my IMEs working. Hopefully this guide will help others. Steps 1-4 can be found on the Localization pages of the Arch Wiki. It is the Wayland/KDE specific settings that will trip you up! Good Luck!
1. Install Japanese & Chinese fonts
- Japanese:
sudo pacman -S otf-ipafont - Chinese:
sudo pacman -S ttf-arphic-ukai
2. Enable Japanese and Chinese in Locale
- Check current locale:
locale -a - Modify
/etc/locale.gen; uncomment:- ja_JP UTF-8 UTF-8
- zh_TW.UTF-8 UTF-8
- zh_TW BIG5
- Regenerate Locale:
locale-gen
3. Install Japanese & Chinese IME
sudo pacman -S fcitx5 fcitx5-chinese-addons fcitx5-configtool fcitx5-gtk fcitx5-mozc fcitx5-qt
- For Japanese:
sudo pacman -S fcitx-mozc - For Chinese:
sudo pacman -S fcitx5-chinese-addons
4. Enable fcitx5
In ~/.bashrc add following environment variables
GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx
QT_IM_MODULE=fcitx
XMODIFIERS=@im=fcitx
5. Set up Wayland Virtual Keyboard
Wayland is probably going to give you annoying pop ups in the bottom right corner until you do this (and even after you do it). If it continues to pop up after you have applied this setting, just hit Do Not Show Again
6. Enable Input Methods
This part is always the most confusing because when I went to enable input methods, I just selected “Japanese”; However, you need to select “Mozc”.
The same confusion happens when you try to select Chinese. You need to search for zh for 中文, then select “Pinyin”. Once complete it should look like this:
7. Restart Your Computer
Everything should work now
That’s Right
I needed a fresh install of Artix on my laptop. I previously had a 20GB root partition and that held up for about a year until I totally ran out of space. I tried GParted, and could not reallocate space across partitions so I just took the nuclear route. My previous OS was Arch, and I have wanted to switch to Artix to get away from systemd for a while now, so it worked out in the end anyway.
