...<snip>
I need an English desktop with occasional Chinese text input for kmail, OO etc.. Now my colleague has to change the "language" (system setttings-->language, with root password!!), logout and log back in. - How can I avoid the language/user change?
...
A "partial" fix to the first issue above:
create a .i18n file in your home directory:
It is not perfect (fonts are horrible and chinput (CTRL+Space) has to be started and stopped before you open each app.) but it works.
I normally avoid the .i18n file entirely, leave the language support at English (since that's what should be the default), and create icons for the applications I need in Japanese (should be able to do the same with Chinese) that launch like this:
env XMODIFIERS="@im=kinput2" LANG=ja_JP.eucJP gedit
This way, the xinput (kinput2) program runs all the time, and only applications which I've specifically set up an icon for will use it. If you set up an icon for a terminal, you can use that to start other Chinese locale applications.
