Japanese Hiragana Input

Does anyone know how to install a Japanese Hiragana keyboard in PureOS?

The Japanese keyboards I have found in the Region & Language menu are either Romaji or Katakana (non-phonetic). I am after an input method that turns Romaji input into Hiragana characters. Solutions that I have found online are focused on Ubuntu or Fedora and involve an option called Japanese (anthy), which does not seem to be available for PureOS.

As PureOS is based on Debian you can look for mozc (can run with fcitx or ibus which are 2 different input methods). You should be able to find ibus-mozc package.

PS: debian user here cannot guaranty for PureOS, I’m trying to help

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Many thanks for your response. I did find a file called mozc, but was not able to install it (it was a text file of sorts). Admittedly, I’m new to Linux and these things will take me a lot longer than more advanced or IT savvy users.

Hi @Nick,

The way to install packages is by using a terminal.
Launch a terminal, called tilix

In that terminal, when you are logged in as the current user, the convention is to describe the line by starting with $
When you are logged in as the-super-user-that-has-all-rights, also called root, we describe those lines with a #

As an example, if you read "type echo 'test'", we can show the command and output as follows:

$ echo 'test'
test

So, when opening the terminal, you need to get the root privileges to be allowed to install anything.

$ su -
Password: <you type in your password and nothing appears>
#

From there on, you can use the apt command to browse packages. Simply typing apt will display the help. Spend a bit of time on that help to learn more :slight_smile:

You can search for what @kajika told you about:

# apt search mozc

You can install the needed package as follows:

# apt install ibus-mozc  

Now you should have the package installed. I’m not a specialist regarding either ibus nor japanese input. Probably @kajika can tell you more about it :slight_smile:

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Thanks! This was very helpful. I got pretty close (found ibus-mozc), but fell short of success. When I keyed in my password to access super user rights (I used the password I had set up for my usual log in), it gave me an authentication failure message. Is the super user password different from my log in password? Sorry if this is a stupid question – as I said, I’m new to this…

Using the command su (which stands for Switch User) is used to actually impersonate root. You need to type in the root password (the administrator password, in a way) when prompted, not your regular user password :slight_smile:

When you started your Librem for the very first time, you went through configuration steps. You were prompted for the root password at that time.

If you really can’t remember your root password, you probably will need to make a full re-install of the OS. That’s not a big deal, but that wipes all your data, so make sure you have a backup somewhere.

Speaking of backup, it’s always a good idea to have a backup. I strongly advise you to have a nextcloud backup. Currently disroot offers a 4GB backup for free (and you most certainly can pay them to extend that). Plus, Purism partnered up with Nextcloud (the software that Disroot runs for free), so you will have good support for it built-in the OS for a long time!

There’s no stupid question if you are willing to learn. Welcome to the place where you get back the actual control of your computer :wink:

Many thanks. That’s encouraging :slight_smile:

Since I recently set up my computer (not much to lose on this side) and, for the life of me, cannot remember my root password, I will go ahead and re-install PureOS. I do, however, want to make sure that I’m not making things worse. All I want is to go back to square one and [re-] install the system. When I looked for guides, I found a whole host of them.

Am I right in assuming that option 3 in this guide is what I’m looking for: https://tracker.pureos.net/w/installation_guide/boot_prompt/

If you can’t login to root account, could be that root doesn’t actually have a password set.
Try with.
sudo passwd
And now choose your root password.

Now answering your question, if your are installing from a pendrive you need to choose the second one.

@Nick,

The three options are:

  1. Boot from hard drive. This will boot your regular PureOS
  2. Boot from USB drive. This will boot the key you have prepared
  3. Test the RAM (booting a utility called memtest, instead of booting your OS)

As @uzanto told, in your case the second option is the right one.


@uzanto,

I may be wrong, but I think PureOS does not sport sudo out of the box, does it?
If I recall correctly, defining the root password is asked on first startup :slight_smile:

Sorry for the late reply. It took me this long to find the time for the reboot. I now have successfully completed it, reset my super-user password, and can run the above commands.

Many thanks :slight_smile:

Many thanks! I have installed ibus-mozc and activated it via the Region and Language input (input sources, add an input source, …, Japanese (Mozc)).

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