Install RSinglish-a real time sinhala unicode converter on linux

Update  : Developers of Rsinglish asked to use fcitx instead of m17n alone so this post is outdated, please refer to the next blog post to install fcitx and type Unicode realtime.
 
Real time Singlish is a real time unicode converter script for Sinhala. Here are few steps to follow in order to install it on Linux mint 16(Petra) and Ubuntu.

1. Install IBus and Ibus-m17n using following commands

 sudo apt-get install ibus  
 sudo apt-get install ibus-m17n  

2. Go to Language Support and click on Install/Remove Languages.

 

3.  Select Sinhala from the list and select Apply Changes

4. Select Keyboard input method system as IBus in Language Support and click Apply System wide button.

5. In control center go to Input Methods(or just search in the start menu), it will bring up a wizard. Activate Ibus daemon by proceeding through the wizard.

6. Ibus will start in your system tray now (The small  keyboard icon) if not use following command to start IBus.

 /usr/bin/ibus-daemon -d  

7. Go to IBus preference by right clicking the IBus icon at the system tray

 8.In the Input methods tab check the custermize active input methods and click on the drop-down menu. Click on show all input methods on the bottom of the drop-down list. Now select the sinhala; Sinhalese from the list and then Singlish(m17n). See the image below. After that click Add  button.

9. All set, restart the machine and left-click on the system tray IBus icon. (if it isn't there just run once and add the command listed in step 6 to Startup Applications). 

You can now select between Singlish and English. Form the preference of IBus you can configure a key combination for faster switching between the input methods.

Here's the letter-map

  Reference : 

[1] http://0xdeafc0de.wordpress.com/rsinglish/
[2] http://0xdeafc0de.wordpress.com/rsinglish/linux-rsinglish-installation/

P.S : Developers of Rsinglish asked to use fcitx instead of m17n alone so please refer to the next blog post to install fcitx

Categories: Singlish , sinhala , unicode