Install Asian CJK Langauge Font Character Support in OpenSUSE (in this case Japanese, Chinese, Korean)

Install Asian Langauge (CJK) Font Character Support in OpenSUSE (in this case Japanese, Chinese, Korean)

1.) The easy and heavy way to do this is to go use YAST (via GUI or ncurses):

YAST then -> System then -> Language 

In the language list you can pick whichever language you want to install character font support but in this example we focus on CJK /or Chinese, Japanese, Korean Languages.

Once you click Chinese, Japanese, Korean Languages, press ok and it will start downloading and installing the packages, this can take awhile as opensuse will download a lot of packages and still depends on your machine and net connection too

The Problem or rather issue with this is it will install everything with the including the kitchen sink approach, it will install so much packages than needed or rather what i call an overkill to support so many fonts and packages for the chosen languages, in the second option i will explain a more leaner way to install CJK language character support and break it down to each of the CJK languages

2.) This second option will be using the Command Line only no GUI, issue command in terminal:

# zypper install arphic-ukai-fonts arphic-uming-fonts ipa-ex-mincho-fonts ipa-mincho-fonts ipa-pmincho-fonts xano-mincho-fonts baekmuk-bitmap-fonts baekmuk-ttf-fonts

or with sans noto google fonts for CJK

# zypper install arphic-ukai-fonts arphic-uming-fonts ipa-ex-mincho-fonts ipa-mincho-fonts ipa-pmincho-fonts xano-mincho-fonts baekmuk-bitmap-fonts baekmuk-ttf-fonts noto-sans-cjk-fonts

In this one command it will install Chinese, Japanese, Korean Font support, below you can choose what to install for CJK support, lets you wanted to install just a leaner version for Japanese or Korean you can just install:

Japnese packages:

ipa-ex-mincho-fonts ipa-mincho-fonts ipa-pmincho-fonts xano-mincho-fonts

so issue command in terminal:

# zypper install ipa-ex-mincho-fonts ipa-mincho-fonts ipa-pmincho-fonts xano-mincho-fonts

Korean packages:

baekmuk-bitmap-fonts baekmuk-ttf-fonts

so issue command in terminal:

# zypper install baekmuk-bitmap-fonts baekmuk-ttf-fonts

Chinese: Actually the chinese packages include several language support including japanese and korean but only partial support in arphic-ukai-fonts arphic-uming-fonts, to show what I meant on what languages are exactly supported in the chinese package details:

arphic-ukai-fonts: contain both Big5 and GB2312 charsets plus some european characters.
    Currently it fully supports the following charsets:
    ISO8859-1,2,3,4,7,9,10,13,14,15 Big5 GB2312-80 Bopomofo Extensions for
    Hakka, Minnan (Unicode 4.0) and MBE variants using the Stylistic
    Alternatives (salt) feature from the OTF spec.
    Partly support is implemented for: HKSCS CNS 11643 GB18030 Japanese
    Korean
                                                                                                  
arphic-uming-fonts: contain both Big5 and GB2312 charsets plus some european characters.                                                                                                   
    Currently it fully supports the following charsets:                                                                                                                    
    ISO8859-1,2,3,4,9,10,13,14,15 Big5 GB2312-80 HKSCS 2004 Bopomofo
    Extensions for Hakka, Minnan (Unicode 4.0) and MBE variants using the
    Alternatives (aalt) feature from the OTF spec.
    Partly support is implemented for: CNS 11643 GB18030 Japanese Korean

Anyways to install issue command in terminal:

# zypper install arphic-ukai-fonts arphic-uming-fonts

Alternatively there is the Google SANS NOTO Fonts you can just install the noto-sans-cjk-fonts: which contains Chinese, Japanese, Korean Font Support from google sans noto CJK fonts, issue command in terminal:

# zypper install noto-sans-cjk-fonts

However this font package though is about 70+MB Download but it will install for support on all 3 CJK languages, you can choose to just install this or install it with the other packages mentioned above, but this by itself can support all 3 langauges, though with a bigger download size, however even if you install all the packages mentioned in this article, it still wont be as much as the gargantuan amount of packages opensuse will install with option 1 mentioned earlier with GUI and ncurses YAST way.

NOTES:

- All fonts packages mentioned here are available from openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Oss REPO or your respective opensuse version OSS REPO, so just make sure you have the OSS repository enabled in your zypper repo list

- List fonts with this command:

$ fc-list

- Rebuilds cached list of fonts (after installing fonts and it doesnt work, run this command):

$ fc-cache -fv

- You could just install everything mentioned here and rebuild the cache font list in one go with this command:

# zypper install arphic-ukai-fonts arphic-uming-fonts ipa-ex-mincho-fonts ipa-mincho-fonts ipa-pmincho-fonts xano-mincho-fonts baekmuk-bitmap-fonts baekmuk-ttf-fonts noto-sans-cjk-fonts && fc-cache -fv