I finally have the solution to this very frustrating problem! (Please note that CJK input works out of the box with no problems on a CJK installation of ubuntu -- this problem only exists for people who use more than one language. That's not very good for encouraging multilingualism, is it...?)
Following the instructions in the SCIM documentation that everyone keeps citing here won't help at all. As far as I can tell, these instructions have never worked. Editing /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim will do you no good whatsoever. The problem is with the "default" and locale files in that folder.
Basically what I did was I replaced the contents of the files /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim, /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/default, and /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/none with the following:
Code:
#
# Use "X input Method" for all applications
#
# Per Ming's Documentation in SCIM, XIM Input Method is activated
# not only for old X-applications but also for GTK and QT appplication.
#
# If a user wish to use, GTK Input Method, (s)he can right-click input
# area and select "Input Methods" and change from "X input Method" to
# "SCIM Input Method".
#
XIM=SCIM
XIM_PROGRAM=/usr/bin/scim
XIM_ARGS="-d"
GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
QT_IM_MODULE=xim
DEPENDS="scim,scim-anthy|scim-canna|scim-chewing|scim-pinyin|scim-hangle|scim-prime|scim-skk|scim-tables-additional|scim-m17n|scim-uim|scim-tables-ja|scim-tables-ko|scim-tables-zh"
This is exactly what the default Chinese installation has in /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim. You'll have to open nautilus as root (Alt+F2 then "gksu nautilus") to make these changes.
There are a bunch of files in that folder with different locale names like zh_CN and zh_TW. Make a copy of the "default" file above and name it with your current locale (like en_GB or fr_FR or whatever).
Make backup copies of these files before replacing them if you want. EDIT: You also have to edit/create the file ~/.scim/global and add the line "/SupportedUnicodeLocales =" followed by your locale. So if you want scim to work in en_US and en_GB locales, you add this line to the file:
Code:
/SupportedUnicodeLocales = en_US.UTF-8,en_GB.UTF-8
Then log out and log in again, and you should notice that there is a keyboard icon in the top right menu bar. Open up firefox or any other program and press Ctrl+Space, and the scim input method editor should pop up.
This works fine on a brand new installation of ubuntu gutsy: I'm in firefox right now, 信不信由你！！
Ok, that's it. See you all on the
Ubuntu Chinese Forums!
EDIT: All of this also assumes that you have already added CJK support (i.e. you have Chinese fonts etc.) using the tool found at System/Language Support.
http://forum.ubuntu.org.cn/