Friday, April 25, 2014

Install Sogou Pinyin on Ubuntu 14.04

Sogou Pinyin is a great Chinese input software. Its Linux version is based on fcitx and developed by Fcitx team and the team of Ubuntu Kylin. No conflicts, which those input softwares based oniBus have, with other software. Those posts on internet only work for older versions of Ubuntu. It's a little bit tricky to install Sogou Pinyin on Ubuntu 14.04.  This post shows how to install Sogou pinyin and Google pinyin on Ubuntu 14.04 step by step. Note that it's better to install both of them after fresh installation of Ubuntu.

Step 1. After fresh installation of Ubuntu, install Chinese language package. Click dash home, search for "Language support". Then click "install/remove language" to install Chinese.
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 Step 2. Install fcitx. Please don't remove the iBus as other posts said. Open Ubuntu Software Center and search fcitx to install it. After the installation finishes, open the  "Language support" window again. At the bottom of this window, one can find "Keyboard Input method system". Change it to fcitx.
Step 3. Go to http://pinyin.sogou.com/linux/. Download Sogou pinyin deb file. Double click it, then the Ubuntu Software Center will open. Click install button.
Setp 4. Open Ubuntu Software Center and search Google pinyin to install it.
Step 5. Logout and then login.  Sogou Pinyin and Google Pinyin are ready to use.
If the above method doesn't work right, install Ubuntu using Chinese. After the fresh install, then install sogou pinyin immediately. Then change the language for menu and windows back to English if you want.