Thank you Akira! ' It looks like your X server doesn't support the XKB extention and GNOME just reported it. You could read/write Japanese without changing the keyboard layout to Japanese keyboard because you can input Japanese without Japanese keyboard layout and the input method supports it. ' Could you please elaborate on how I might write Japanese without changing the keyboard layout to Japanese keyboard? Thanks again for helping! __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail