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HOWTO: Using Keyman for Linux with KDE
Unfortunately when using the KDE desktop environment, the support for ibus (which Keyman for Linux uses underneath) isn’t that great.
Prequisites
As a prerequisite it is assumed that KDE Plasma, Wayland, and sddm are installed and working. This is the base for the steps described below. The steps may be appropriate for other configurations, too.
Installation and Configuration Steps
If you want to use Keyman with KDE you’ll have to do some manual steps.
Step 1 Install Keyman package
In a terminal window, run:
sudo apt update sudo apt install keymanIf not installed, this command installs the ibus package.
This is just an example for the apt package manager, on another Linux platform there may be a different package manager and different package names.
Step 2 Provide the environment variables required for the ibus input method framework
The environment variables "GTK_IM_MODULE" and "QT_IM_MODULE" must be set to "ibus"; "XMODIFIERS" to "@im=ibus".
This can be achieved by setting them in the /etc/environment file or by putting a file containing the environment variables into the directory $HOME/.config/environment.d.
The format in both files is:
GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus QT_IM_MODULE=ibusStep 3 Auto-start the ibus daemon on every login
This can be achieved by providing a file ending with .desktop in the directory $HOME/.config/autostart.
[Desktop Entry] Exec=<some directory path>/ibus-start.sh Icon=application-x-shellscript Name=ibus-start Type=Application X-KDE-AutostartScript=trueThe content of the ibus-start.sh file is:
#!/bin/bash ibus-daemon -dxrn kdeThis may lead to an IBus Notification message box after logging in.
IBus should be called from the desktop session in Wayland. For KDE, you can launch 'systemsettings5' utility and go to "Input Devices"->"Virtual Keyboard" icon and select "Ibus Wayland" and click "Apply" button to configure Ibus in Wayland. (...)One option is ignoring the IBus Notification. IBus will be working.
Another option is to follow the instructions in the IBus Notification. In this case the local autostart actions are no longer required. Therefore before you follow the instructions, remove the .desktop file described above. Because another autostart mechanism will be used.
Even then another IBus Notification box may appear.
Please unset QT_IM_MODULE and GTK_IM_MODULE environment variables and 'ibus-daemon --panel disable' should be executed as a child process of ibus-ui-gtk3 component.Warning
Please do not follow these instructions. Leave the QT_IM_MODULE and
GTK_IM_MODULE environment variables set, otherwise some fonts won't be correctly displayed with Keyman.
Step 4 Reboot so that the changes you made get applied to the new session
Now you should be able to use Keyman for Linux and add and use Keyman keyboards.
Adding input methods to IBus
Keyman keyboards installed have to be added to IBus as Input Method (Launcher->"System"->"IBus Preferences"->"Input Method").
Note
It seems that some KDE specific programs like Konsole aren’t designed to work with ibus/Keyman keyboards. To test if a Keyman keyboard works you can test with gedit or LibreOffice Writer.
