Input method (hardware problem?)

[Colin Law]

On 15 September 2014 10:08, Thomas Blasejewicz <thomas at s7.dion.ne.jp> wrote:
> Good afternoon
> I am not sure, I am allowed to ask this kind of question here, but the
> Mint community does not seem to have a mailing list
> and their forum is very slow/inactive so that getting answers there may
> take 10 years.
> Since Mint seems to be based on Ubuntu, I thought, I might be permitted
> a little sacrilege.
>
> I installed Mint 17, Cinamon 32-bit (1x) / 64-bit (1x) versions on two
> different computers.
> Since I had trouble with the 64-bit version, I made a clean installation
> of the 32-bit version on that computer too.
> All these installations erased everything on the PC and newly installed
> Mint 17.
>
>
> Problem:
> System installed -> Updates downloaded + installed
> Languages downloaded + installed (Japanese and German in addition to
> English)
> added a German (querty) KB layout
> -> installed Ibus-anthy
> -> Logout -> Login
> Keyboard Input Method -> add Japanese -> Anthy
> -> added a key for switching input methods
> -> after initially using a different setting, chose "Use same KB layout
> for all windows"
> (which seemed to help at first)
>
> Now, initially I DO HAVE and can switch between the language applets for
> Japanese / German;
> BUT ... when I just touch the applet for switching between Japanese
> alphanumeric/character input ...
> the language applet for Japanese / German DISAPPEARS
> AND
> the keyboard layout I set up earlier also is replaced by a generic
> layout while its Name is still displayed as "German".
> That prevents switching between keyboard layouts and sometimes (always?)
> the switching between input methods.
>
> The PC (Mouse computer, CPU 2.4 GH, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, something I got
> from my son) also frequently becomes
> "unresponsive" while trying to setup things like keyboard, input method
> etc., NOT running any other software.
> Unresponsive means, it will not react to mouse clicking, while the mouse
> pointer still moves around, or keystrokes.
> This "recovers" after several minutes.
> Whereas the system never "recovers" once it has been "suspended".
>
> My son (who was running Windows 7 64-bit on it) told me, that the
> computer sometimes gets very slow (unresponsive)
> and thus suspected possible hardware problems.
> Before installing Mint I ran an integrity and MEM test. Neither showed
> any errors.

How much RAM have you got?  The slow down could be due to swapping to
disk.  The indicator is that when it goes slow the disk light flickers
continuously.

Colin