CJK Input Setup in Manjaro/Arch Linux with IBus

There are at least 2 ways of setting up a CJK environment if you want to type in these languages or more: IBus and fcitx. Today we'll be using the former, but if you want to use the latter, head to Alex's blog: https://dragonman225.js.org/linux-fcitx.html

CJK → Chinese, Japanese, Korean → ibus-chewing, ibus-anthy, ibus-hangul respectively

Bonus: Vietnamese → ibus-unikey

Installation

You probably need fonts first:

sudo pacman -S \
wqy-microhei wqy-microhei-lite \
otf-ipafont \
ttf-baekmuk

After the above, we go for IBus and its method engines:

sudo pacman -S ibus ibus-chewing ibus-anthy ibus-hangul

Now put the following in either ~/.xprofile (create if it doesn't exist) or ~/.xinitrc, as pointed out by this ArchWiki article:

export GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
export QT_IM_MODULE=ibus

Configure IBus

Either do ibus-setup or click on IBus Preferences from the menu, then add your input methods:

💡

Remember that you need to also head to each IM's Preferences option if you want to change any setting modularly

Check everything when in doubt - Indiana Jones

Usage Guide:

Switching Input Methods:

Super (hold) + Space: Scrolling through IMs

Japanese:

Ctrl + J to switch between Latin and Kana while in Japanese IM. I changed this into Alt + `
Hiragana: Type the romaji version normally and press Enter
Katakana: Type the romaji version normally and press F7
Kanji: Prediction should be used here. Type the romaji version of each Kanji, then press Tab

Have fun~

キョンくん電話！