Re: A question about /etc/profile

[Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 8:19 PM, Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>> >>>>> I added the following lines to /etc/profile:
>>>> >>>>>
>>>> >>>>> export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM
>>>> >>>>> export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim
>>>> >>>>> export QT_IM_MODULE=scim


>> [...] putting those `export' commands in /etc/profile has the advantage
>> that I can put chinese characters also in the command line, with `C-space'.
>> The disadvantage is that scim is automatically started every time I start
>> the Terminal application, even if I don't want to use scim.  The Terminal is
>> slowed down when starting.
>>
>> On the other hand, running those three commands from command line has the
>> advantage that I start scim only when necessary; but then it seems that I
>> lose the possibility of using scim to input characters in the shell.
>>
>> I don't know if it's clear...



Aneurin Price <aneurin.price@gmail.com> writes:

> I don't know anything about scim, or what terminal you're using, so I'm
> guessing that it's a Gnome Terminal based on the fact that you've been
> talking about scim with Gtk apps. I would imagine - and may be wrong - that
> the terminal uses the environment variable to set its input method on start
> up, so in order to have the ability to use those characters in the terminal,
> you would need to set those variables in the parent process. One way of doing
> that is to put them in your .xsessionrc (I said .xsession earlier, but I
> believe that was wrong). This would, as you say, be equivalent for that user
> to putting them in /etc/profile, so every Gtk application would use scim.
>
> How are you starting your terminal? If you're using a menu entry, you could
> create a duplicate entry, then edit the command from
> '/usr/bin/gnome-terminal' - or whatever it is - to 'XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM
> GTK_IM_MODULE=scim QT_IM_MODULE=scim /usr/bin/gnome-terminal' and the
> environment variables would apply to that terminal alone, allowing you to use
> Chinese characters there without using scim everywhere. You could keep using
> the old menu entry when you don't need to write in Chinese. Is that more like
> what you want?  (I hope that works. It should do if I've understood the
> situation.)



I start the terminal by left-clicking on the small icon on the desktop panel.
I tried to do what you suggest: I right clicked on the small terminal icon,
then in Properties I edited the command from '/usr/bin/gnome-terminal to:

'XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM GTK_IM_MODULE=scim QT_IM_MODULE=scim /usr/bin/gnome-terminal'

, but when I left click to launch the terminal I get an error message:

Details: Failed to execute child process "XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM
GTK_IM_MODULE=scim QT_IM_MODULE=scim /usr/bin/gnome-terminal" (No such file or
directory)


Thanks
Rodolfo