spiegel-keyman/docs/linux

Keyman for Linux

Projects

• keyman-config - km-config and some other tools to install, uninstall and view information about Keyman keyboard packages.
• ibus-keyman - IBUS integration to use .kmp Keyman keyboards
• core - common keyboardprocessor library

See license information about licensing.

Linux Requirements/Setup

• It is helpful to be using the packages.sil.org repo

• Install packages required for building and developing Keyman for Linux. The list of required packages can be seen in linux/debian/control. It is easiest to use the mk-build-deps tool to install the dependencies:

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install devscripts equivs
  sudo mk-build-deps --install linux/debian/control
  

Compiling from Command Line

Build script

Installing for ibus to use ibus-keyman

• The process to build and install everything is:

  • linux/build.sh configure to set the version and setup the build system
  • linux/build.sh build to build
  • sudo linux/build.sh install to install to /usr/local

• Some of the files must be installed to /usr/share/ or /usr/local/share so linux/build.sh install must be run as sudo.

  To do this run sudo linux/build.sh install

  • This will install to /usr/local and /usr/local/share/ibus/component/keyman.xml and /usr/local/share/keyman/icons

• run sudo linux/build.sh uninstall to uninstall everything and put it back again

Continuous integration

Teamcity PR builds will run linux/build.sh install

Master builds run linux/build.sh install and create source packages

Nightly and release builds upload the most recent new master build to https://downloads.keyman.com

Building packages

See Linux packaging doc for details on building Linux packages for Keyman.

Testing

keyman-config

The unit tests can be run with the following command:

cd linux/keyman-config
./run-tests.sh

ibus-keyman

If you want to run the ibus-keyman tests with Wayland, you'll have to have mutter installed (version >=40). Otherwise you'll only be able to run the tests with X11.

The tests can be run with the following command:

cd linux/ibus-keyman
./build.sh test

or with a script that accepts additional parameters:

cd linux/ibus-keyman/tests
scripts/run-tests

The run-tests script accepts different arguments which can be seen with scripts/run-tests --help.

Running Keyman for Linux

Setting up Ibus

Ibus should be running on a default install of Ubuntu.

You may want to install extra packages to get other ibus input methods e.g ibus-unikey for VN.

Run ibus restart after installing any of them.

Getting a Keyman keyboard

• After installing a Keyman keyboard usually ibus will be restarted automatically so that ibus will look for the new keyboard. If for whatever reason the keyboard doesn't show up in the system keyboard list, you can manually run ibus restart.

Activating a Keyman keyboard

Keyman tries to activate the keyboard automatically. If you want to activate it for a different language, you can do so by following the steps below.

GNOME3 (focal and bionic default, also newer Ubuntu versions)

• Click the connection/sound/shutdown section in the top right. Then the tools icon for Settings.

• In Language and Region click + to add a keyboard.

• Click the 3 dots expander then search for "Other" and click it

• The Keyman keyboards should be listed here to choose

• Use Win-space to switch between keyboards.

Cinnamon (wasta default)

• Open Menu and find IBus Keyboards (IBus Preferences) and run it
• Make sure Show icon on system tray is checked
• Select the tab Input Method.
• Click Add to add a keyman keyboard.
• Click the 3 dots expander then search for "Other" and click it
• The Keyman keyboards should be listed here to choose

MATE (alternative)

• Open System-> Preferences -> Other -> IBus Preferences.
• Make sure Show icon on system tray is checked
• Select the tab Input Method.
• Click Add to add a keyman keyboard.
• Click the 3 dots expander then search for "Other" and click it
• The Keyman keyboards should be listed here to choose