12.4 IBus Input Method Framework

IBus stands for "Intelligent Input Bus", an input method framework widely used in Linux and UNIX-like systems.

Installing the IBus Input Method Framework

• Install using pkg:

# pkg install ibus zh-ibus-libpinyin

Where zh-ibus-libpinyin is the intelligent Pinyin input method.

• Or install using Ports:

# cd /usr/ports/textproc/ibus/ && make install clean
# cd /usr/ports/chinese/ibus-libpinyin/ && make install clean

Optional input methods include:

Port	Description
chinese/ibus-cangjie	Cangjie input method
chinese/ibus-chewing	New Chewing input method
chinese/ibus-rime	Rime input method engine
chinese/ibus-table-chinese	Includes Wubi, Cangjie, and various other input methods

Configuring Environment Variables

To set variables for Simplified Chinese UTF-8 encoding, edit the ~/.login_conf file and add the following content:

me:\
        :lang=zh_CN.UTF-8:\
        :setenv=LC_ALL=zh_CN.UTF-8,LC_COLLATE=zh_CN.UTF-8,LC_CTYPE=zh_CN.UTF-8,LC_MESSAGES=zh_CN.UTF-8,LC_MONETARY=zh_CN.UTF-8,LC_NUMERIC=zh_CN.UTF-8,LC_TIME=zh_CN.UTF-8,XIM=ibus,GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus,QT_IM_MODULE=ibus,XMODIFIERS="@im=ibus",XIM_PROGRAM="ibus-daemon",XIM_ARGS="--daemonize --xim":\
        :charset=UTF-8:

The meanings of the input method-related environment variables are as follows:

Variable	Description
XIM=ibus	Specifies the X Input Method (XIM) framework as IBus
GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus	Specifies that GTK applications use the IBus input method module
QT_IM_MODULE=ibus	Specifies that Qt applications use the IBus input method module
XMODIFIERS="@im=ibus"	Specifies that X applications connect to IBus via the XIM protocol
XIM_PROGRAM="ibus-daemon"	Specifies the path to the XIM daemon
XIM_ARGS="--daemonize --xim"	Specifies the startup arguments for ibus-daemon; --daemonize means running as a background daemon, --xim means enabling XIM support

After editing, execute the following command to update the login capability database:

$ cap_mkdb ~/.login_conf

Wayland

Under Wayland, the environment variable configuration for IBus differs from X11. GNOME has integrated IBus since version 3.6, and under GNOME Wayland, there is no need to manually set GTK_IM_MODULE and QT_IM_MODULE. For other desktop environments, the configuration strategy for GTK_IM_MODULE and QT_IM_MODULE is similar to Fcitx 5 (see Section 12.3 Wayland section). XIM_PROGRAM and XIM_ARGS are only used in X11/XWayland environments and are not needed in pure Wayland sessions.

Configuring IBus

After completing the environment variable configuration, set up IBus using the following method.

IBus setup tool:

$ ibus-setup

IBus

UTF-8 Encoding

IBus requires UTF-8 encoding, but does not restrict the specific locale value (such as C.UTF-8 or zh_CN.UTF-8).

IBus