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Is it possible at all to input JCK languages (Traditional Chinese in my case) in the console without having X-windows running?

All the help I have found online for Chinese input assume that X and some kind of destop manager is running.

I am in the process of planning a difficult upgrade of my outdated system, and I have gentoo installed on a different partition. I can easily chroot into this brand new system to configure things, test applications and plan the upgrade. While chroot'ed, I'd like to use applications installed on the new gentoo system to input Chinese. I don't know if it is possible at all. If it is, what applications would I need to install?

So I guess my question includes two related but slightly different scenarios:

1) input CJK on a machine that has been booted to a terminal, without X running at all on the system. 2) input CJK on a machine running X (KDE) and from which I chroot into a new system, and use the chroot environment to input Chinese.

Side question: is it possible to start X (KDE or a lightweight DE) from within the chroot?

(The tags: [CJK] or [Chinese] are missing.)

augustin
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2 Answers2

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I can answer part of my own question:

Yes, one can start X from within the chroot'ed environment. I just found the following gentoo wiki page:
http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/HOWTO_startx_in_a_chroot
So now I know it's theoretically possible.

So if I manage to run KDE from the chroot'ed system, I'd be able to test Chinese input further...

Also, this answer appears to be very pertinent to my question, although I haven't tested yet and I don't understand everything it says:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/196102/5687

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augustin
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About CJK input without X.

You must first enable the display of multi-byte characters on the console.
Maybe it would be possible in fbterm.

To I guess(I do not have the experience of Chinese input), Chinese input might be possible in the uim + uim-fep + uim-chewing.
Alternatively, you can use the extension of the editor (emacs, vim).

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mjy
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