::A Geek in Korea::

Proving my restlessness knows no bounds, I’ve gone and muddied up my system yet again by installing the KDE desktop on my Ubuntu Edgy Eft install. I’m now running the Kubuntu setup I used to use when I had my laptop using Linux last year around this time. I’m running a mixed environment, with Gnome and KDE applications sitting on my machine. That’s one of the benefits of using Ubuntu, they allow for the easy installation of different window managers and desktops.

A long time ago, back in college, I used to be a litestep freak. I used to spend countless hours upgrading my desktop by adding little useless applications, designing skins only I used, and installing application after application that were prone to crashing my machine often. These programs controlled how my applications looked, how windows were controlled, and all the stuff people usually don’t bother to think about when they fire up a computer. All of this customization and optimization of desktop environments eventually got away from me and I gave up on the scene entirely.

Moving to Korea, I didn’t even bring a computer with me initially. I just hung out at PC rooms all day, and they didn’t allow/want customization. Once Windows XP came out, and it was stable enough (for my purposes) to allow for a day of uninterrupted surfing, I stopped worrying about having “desktop themes” and “skins” entirely.

Moving back into Linux land, I’ve got the urge to customize my desktops once again. Thus my desire to try out KDE once more. It’s a pretty environment, full of wizbang menus systems and some lovely applications (Konquerer, Amarok,Ktorrent). This time, however, desire is getting the computer set up to do things I need it to do, instead of for the bells and whistles. Pretty native applications that work certainly don’t hurt, however.

I’ve given up trying to do the tasks I’ve found most difficult since I’ve installed Linux in the first place. I accept that I’ve got to reboot to do the following: Encode video, Manage my wife’s Mp3 player, and let my wife use Internet Explorer. If I get those issues solved, I’d be satisfied never using Windows again. However, since I can’t find any easy solutions, I’ve decided to just “deal” with it and accept the reboot. After the tasks are finished, I’m back to fiddling with Linux again.
One thing that has cropped up as a potential serious issue recently has been Korean language typing, which I have an interest in getting working. The less my wife needs to reboot into Windows, the better. It’s simply IMPOSSIBLE in KDE. It doesn’t work as advertised in the language settings. I can switch menus to Korean, but typing in Korean with English menus isn’t happening at all. There are menus and programs and lots of different neat little buttons, but they do nothing. All that work I’ve put into trying to make a nice environment is moot if it’s not going to work.

Unless I switch my entire windows manager to Korean, you can’t type in Korean while having an English environment. That’s simply unacceptable. Gnome, the original desktop environment I installed with Ubuntu allows for a mixed English and Korean typing environment (I’ve set it up following ancient howto files long before), but it’s not easy to set up, despite my recent efforts. I’m fairly annoyed by this development.

The easiest way to have Korean typing in Linux I’ve found was simply creating an environment for my wife that’s got Korean menus (Create new user. Change the choice of language on the login screen) and having scim or (a program that handles multiple input languages) install itself and “just work”. This is simply a workaround. I’d be much happier if I didn’t need a second user and I could type in both languages easily.

Having dual language input work like it does in Windows is significantly harder than it should be right now, and it’s really a sticking point for me. I’m having a harder time trying to set it up than I did last year. That’s not progress. If there is a way to do this easily, I’d love to find it, but until then, all this customization seems like wasted effort.

EDIT:

It appears I’ve completely borked my Kubuntu installation (which I’ll simply uninstall now) fiddling around with this annoying text input problem, but I did get it working like I wanted in Gnome. Yay! One annoying reason to reboot eliminated!