Make sure fcitx-bin is installed when installing a Chinese language

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

As a result of bug #1430893, check-language-support now pulls fcitx IM support for Chinese instead of IBus ditto. However, this is true only if the fcitx package is installed.

Consider these steps:

* Plain English install -> fcitx not installed

* Install a Chinese language using Language Support, and find that
  1. No IM support gets installed and
  2. fcitx is not available as an IM framework option.

I think it would make more sense to have the fcitx package installed for all users.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

I'm hoping for someone to comment on this before a possible MP.

[William Hua (attente)]

I think this was discussed before, but would it be possible to add make language-pack-zh-hans or language-pack-zh-hans-base Depend on fcitx-pinyin? This should pull in fcitx-bin which should be enough to make it the default IM framework.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

It wouldn't automatically make it default, but it would make it available and possible to switch to from gnome-language-selector after having installed a Chinese language.

The language packs are auto built AFAIK, and I don't know how easy it is to fiddle with debian/config for only a few of them.

Also, pkg_depends tests whether fcitx is installed, but I suppose this could be changed to test for fcitx-bin.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Another problem: gnome-language-selector uses check-language-support to first list the packages to be installed, and then installs them. It means that l-s wouldn't pull the fcitx IM stuff according to pkg_depends when a Chinese language is installed, but only next time gnome-language-selector is started.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Correction #3: I meant debian/control, of course.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Maybe a language-selector hack? If the user requests the installation of some Chinese language, install fcitx-bin (if not already installed) before calling check-language-support.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Changed to language-selector after talking with William Hua on IRC.
http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2015/03/25/%23ubuntu-desktop.html#t14:37

[Aron Xu (happyaron)]

In pkg_depends, if we specify lines as:

im:zh-hans::fcitx-pinyin

This means make l-s don't check the existence of any dependent package, do you think this will work?

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Yes. That's exactly what I'm about to upload. :)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package language-selector - 0.140

---------------
language-selector (0.140) vivid; urgency=medium

  * data/pkg_depends:
    Pull kde-config-fcitx for Chinese on Kubuntu.
 -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson <email address hidden> Wed, 25 Mar 2015 20:12:00 +0100

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

This is the changelog entry which applies to this bug report:

* data/pkg_depends:
  If a Chinese language is installed (or about to be installed):
  - pull the applicable Chinese fcitx IM engines irrespective of the
    presence of the fcitx framework, and
  - pull also fcitx (the framework)