Configuring Korean-English Conversion Key with ibus-hangul in Ubuntu 20.04

If you use Ubuntu for software development purposes, you will mostly type in English. However, in some cases, it may be necessary to input Korean into the GNOME GUI.

So, since the default settings only allow English input, we will use the ibus-hangul plugin to set up Korean input.

ibus-hangul

ibus-hangul is a plugin that supports the Hangul input method on Linux or Ubuntu. ibus stands for Input Bus. Ubuntu already supports Hangul input, but we will upgrade and use ibus-hangul for optimized Hangul input.

Update apt’s repository and upgrade the ibus-hangul plugin. When I installed it, the plug-in size was 615 MB. It takes some time to upgrade.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade ibus-hangul

Korean input settings

First, search for the region keyword in the applications, then find and run the Region & Language setting.

Search region and run Region & Lanugages

Then, add Input Source in the Region & Language tab. Search for korean and add Korean (Hangul).

Add Korean (Hangul) Input Source

Before setting the newly added input source, remove the existing English (US). This is to prevent conflict with the newly added Korea (Hangul) input source. And the added input source already includes an English input function.

Click the gear icon on the Korea (Hangul) input source to open IBusHangle Setup.

Korean-English conversion key setting

Then, activate Start in Hangul mode in the Etc section. For reference, when you boot up Ubuntu, if you want the first input mode in the GNOME GUI to be Korean, enable it.

And, remove all Hangul Toggle Key added by default. There is no guarantee that this will match the language switch key on the actual keyboard you are using.

Click the Add button, and when a new window opens, press the language switch key on your keyboard. In the case of my keyboard, Alt_R was assigned as the language change key.