I've got it so that I can enable Japanese input into an application by typing the following at a command prompt (with FireFox, for example): [dave@localhost ~]$ kinput2 -canna & [1] 10631 [dave@localhost ~]$ XMODIFIERS='@im=kinput2' LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.utf8 firefox However, I would rather not have to type in all that craziness each time I want to start an application. Further, instead of having to configure each application individually, it would be better to have this setting just on all the time for every application, both existing and new. I was under the impression this was possible. Following advice gained elswhere, I thought I could put the following into /etc/X11/Xresources: ! Japanese Input #!/bin/sh XMODIFIERS='@im=kinput2' LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.utf8 kinput2 -canna & But doing so results in Japanese input not being available for any application. I'm using KDE, and I learned that I should be able to put any shell script in the ~/.kde/Autostart/ directory and have it launch on start. So I put a file there called j-input.sh, changed it's permissions with chmod 755, and put the same commands that I had in Xresources. But still no result. Long story short: How do I get these command line settings to be permanently on: XMODIFIERS='@im=kinput2' LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.utf8 kinput2 -canna & Dave