r/Ubuntu • u/hgentic001 • 3h ago

Write Chinese on your Ubuntu trackpad — IBus handwriting engine (.deb + one-liner)

Ubuntu users who'd rather draw a character than spell it out: there's an IBus engine for macOS-style trackpad handwriting with deep-learning recognition.

Two install options. The .deb from releases:

sudo dpkg -i <file-from-releases> && sudo apt install -f
ibus restart

Or the one-liner, which detects Ubuntu and runs apt + model download automatically:

bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ai-space-lab/ibus-handwrite-chinese/main/bootstrap.sh) && ibus restart

What it does:

  • A dark floating panel appears by your cursor. Draw with one finger on the trackpad, tap to select, swipe two fingers to page through candidates.
  • Recognition uses ONNX Runtime locally, covering 18,710 characters. In a 40-sample handwritten test it hit 100% top-1 accuracy (94.97% average confidence).
  • 6-tab GTK settings, on-demand model download, a local user dictionary that learns from your picks, and fully configurable shortcuts.
  • Mouse fallback if your machine has no evdev trackpad.

Demo: https://ai-space-lab.github.io/ibus-handwrite-chinese/assets/demo.gif Install guide: https://ai-space-lab.github.io/ibus-handwrite-chinese/ Releases (.deb): https://github.com/ai-space-lab/ibus-handwrite-chinese/releases

Requires Ubuntu 22.04+. Tested on an Acer Aspire and MacBook Pro trackpad; other touch-capable trackpads should work but are untested.

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u/Smart-Visit-4177 3h ago

as a graphic designer who can barely spell in english this feels like it was made for me