Fcitx5 archlinux hyprland setup

11 April 2025

I recently reinstalled my Arch Linux. This means that I will need to set up Fcitx5 on Hyprland again soon. To prepare for this, I've decided to research and reinstall simultaneously. This blog post documents the results of my research.

1: Install it

Note: By itself, fcitx5 has only a basic framework that just gives English support. If you want to input other languages, such as Chinese or Japanese, you need an Input Method Engine (IME). See Input method#List of available input method editors for a list of available IMEs.

Source

pacman -S fcitx5-im

fcitx5-im will install the following package:

I will also install fcitx5-unikey so I can type Vietnamese.

pacman -S fcitx5-unikey

2: Env setup

In my case, I am using Hyprland, so I will put the env in the Hyprland config.

env = GTK_IM_MODULE,fcitx5
env = QT_IM_MODULE,fcitx5
env = XMODIFIERS,@im=fcitx5

This may work for others:

GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx5
QT_IM_MODULE=fcitx5
XMODIFIERS="@im=fcitx5"

3: Run it on boot

How to do this depends on your DE/ditro/Init system. I can't tell you exactly how.

Here's a list of guides for some popular DE, though:

Bonus(aka Electron issues):

I hate love Electron apps since the day that I use linux. Especially when I'm dealing with Electron apps on Wayland, things totally work perfectly. Like, without any issues! It is like a bless to my poor soul.

Good luck. You'll probably need it.