Let im-config back off if IBus on GNOME desktops

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Note:
Quite a few ibus crash bug reports have been marked as duplicates of this bug. If you find that such a bug was not actually addressed through the fix of this bug, please feel free to comment on the bug report and remove the duplicate link.

[Impact]

GNOME desktops have built-in mechanisms for launching and configuring IBus. However, up to now im-config has overridden GNOME in this respect, resulting in a slightly different command for launching IBus and a few extra environment variables; most importantly GTK_IM_MODULE has been set to "ibus".

This was recently changed via im-config 0.45-1 in groovy, where im-config does not do anything in case of IBus on a GNOME desktop. A positive side effect of the change is that the frequency of IBus crashes has been significantly reduced.

No deep analysis has been carried out which explains *how* this change prevents IBus crashes. The basis for the conclusion is instead statistics from errors.ubuntu.com. Some relevant links can be found in this discourse topic:

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ibus-no-more-gtk-im-module-ibus/17727

[Test case]

We have not been able to reproduce the crashes, so a simple test which verifies the fix can't be accomplished. Instead we need to be attentive to possible regressions.

* On an Ubuntu desktop, install ibus-libpinyin and ibus-hangul.

* Log out and log in again (to an X session).

* Enable Intelligent Pinyin and Hangul (from Settings
  -> Region & Language)

* For each of Intelligent Pinyin, Hangul, and the on screen
  keyboard:

  - Confirm that inputting works without hassle

  - Do so on various apps: FF, TB, gedit, LO.

[Regression risk]

Even if we have done it differently in Ubuntu (and Debian), the GNOME mechanisms we now let replace im-config with respect to IBus is mature code which has been in use for quite some time on other distros. That speaks for a low regression risk.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Hello Gunnar, or anyone else affected,

Accepted im-config into focal-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/im-config/0.44-1ubuntu1.2 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-focal to verification-done-focal. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-focal. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Verified the test case using im-config 0.44-1ubuntu1.2 from focal-proposed.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package im-config - 0.44-1ubuntu1.2

---------------
im-config (0.44-1ubuntu1.2) focal; urgency=medium

  * d/p/back-off-if-ibus-on-gnome.patch:
    - Let im-config back off if IBus on GNOME desktop (LP: #1893551)
  * d/p/make-usable-on-wayland.patch, d/README.Debian, d/install:
    - Use im-config on Wayland without uninstalling IBus (LP: #1893552)

 -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson <email address hidden> Thu, 03 Sep 2020 19:55:00 +0200

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for im-config has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Ohad Lutzky (lutzky)]

I believe this *may* have caused a regression in the form of https://askubuntu.com/questions/1276283/japanese-input-suddenly-broken.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

@Ohad: Thanks for the link. I just added a comment to that Ask Ubuntu question.