Unijoy Layout in Ubuntu Gnome 17

Using unijoy on Ubuntu 17.04 is similar to what it was before. First thing is Ibus and m17n engine needs to be installed on your system before this could be done.

Update (15th November 2017)
Ubuntu 17.10 has been released and there are few changes. Dconf editor is not installed by default. so you may have to install it using

sudo apt install dconf-editor

Also after completing this whole process, you have to restart ibus and that can be done like this

ibus restart

Step 1: Install Ibus

Press ctrl+alt+t or run the terminal. then type in the following command as root user:

sudo apt-get install ibus ibus-m17n m17n-db m17n-contrib ibus-gtk

If you only want unijoy, then you don’t need to add m17n-contrib in your command. this will install ibus on your system with m17n engine (this engine has Bangla/Bengali and other East Asian Language writing system). You can also use Ubuntu’s software centre to install Ibus.

Step 2: Find out if unijoy layout is on your system

Now type the following in your terminal.

dpkg -L m17n-db | grep bn

Install iBus

This will list all the Bangla/Bengali keyboard layout installed on your system.

If you want to use it for other keyboard layouts like Probhat or Inscript then you can check whether they are installed on your sytem by typing the following command:

dpkg -L m17n-contrib | grep bn

Check if unijoy layout is installed

Step 3: Set your keyboard layout in dconf editor

Type dconf-editor in your terminal and the editor will run. Now you can make changes in there.

Check if other keyboard layouts were installed

You have to change following settings to get Unijoy layout added as your keyboard layout.
org.gnome.desktop.input-sources and update the value of sources from there.

In order to do it, click to expand org, then find and click on gnome from there. After that expand desktop and then click on input-sources.

Run dconf editor

Now you can see some settings on the right hand side section of the editor. If you find sources is empty (showing [] only), or only showing something like this [(‘xkb’, ‘gb’)], then you need to click on that and add the following:
(‘ibus’, ‘m17n:bn:unijoy’). For other keyboard settings, change bn:unijoy with something else. For example, if you want inscript layout, changed the second settings to something like this (‘ibus’, ‘m17n:bn:probhat’).

Update input-source settings

That’s it. Now you’ll be able to see unijoy layout, or other layout along with the default keyboard layout. [Update: You need to restart ibus in order to start using the unijoy layout. To restart ‘ibus’ type ibus restart in terminal and press enter.]. Please note that, before ubuntu 15, the default keyboard shortcut for changing input method was ctrl+space, but in ubuntu 15, the shortcut is super+space.

Region & Language Settings

If you want to change keyboard shortcut to switch between keyboard layouts, then go to Settings>Region & Language Settings and then goto input sources tab and on the right hand side, you’ll see shortcut settings. You can choose which keys to press to switch between keyboard layouts.

Install Bangla Fonts

If you find the fonts are missing, you can install them like this:

sudo apt install fonts-lohit-beng-bengali fonts-lohit-beng-assamese fonts-beng-extra fonts-beng

This will install the following fonts:

  • Ani
  • Jamrul
  • Likhan
  • Lohit Assamese
  • Lohit Bengali
  • Mitra Mono
  • Mukti Narrow

Assamese language has the same alphabets like Bangla, but if you however don’t want to use Assamese fonts, then just skip that package name (fonts-lohit-beng-assamese).