Typing in Thai, Ubuntu MATE 18.04?

Support & Help Requests
1

Hi,
I’m setting up Ubuntu MATE 18.04 for a friend, and she sometimes needs to type in Thai. I’ve added Thai language support, but I don’t see any keyboard indicator.
Does anyone know what is the best way to have Thai and English typing enabled in Ubuntu MATE 18.04? With easy switching?
Thanks?
PS: What I mean is: should I use ibus? fcitx? what is the most recommended option?

2

Control Center > Keyboard > Layouts > Add > By Country and choose Country: Thailand and Variant: Thai > click Add
And that’s it, an icon will appear on the panel with the initials of the selected keyboard in the Notification Area; just click that icon and it will automatically change between keyboard layouts.
้ำสสน ไนพสก

3

Thanks! So no need to mess around with ibus and the input method dropdown in the Language Preferences?

4

I don’t think so. I mean I have ibus installed but I do not think it is needed for this. I just tested on my pc and it worked right away, those Thai characters where written with my keyboard.

Test in your pc and let me know if it works, if not you can always try installing ibus and a couple more of its packages to do it.

5

Yes, it works. But since I know nothing of typing in Thai, I was wondering if there is anything that an actual Thai person would not like.
I seem to remember that for Chinese, for example, the many different input methods make it worthwhile to go the ibus route, but I could be wrong.
Thanks for your help! I’ll leave it at this :slight_smile:

6

You’re welcome!

I also do not know about typing in Thai, sorry… :frowning:
But if the ibus method is to be needed, then install ibus and ibus-m17n:

sudo apt install ibus ibus-m17n

Reboot the system and it’s done, you should then have ibus on the panel (or run IBus Preferences from the menu) and then go Input Method > Add > click the 3 vertical dots > and scroll down until you find Thai and click Add.

You have more details here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ibus

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7

This might also help?:

8

Thanks both. I will leave it with the built-in keyboard switching, and if they let me know that it’s not enough, I’ll look into ibus.
:sunglasses:

1 Like