Background

As part of the starting a new journey, I had to reconfigure my personal laptop. Everything had to start from scratch — from the ISO image, to system installation, to configuration, to being fully functional. It wasn’t as easy as it seemed.

Especially when I realized that, even for some of the most common tools, I had to learn and install from scratch (or maybe I just hadn’t paid enough attention before).

For non-native English speakers, a dictionary application is essential. Unfortunately, my favorite Immersive Translation doesn’t have a PC client.

I’ve been using Linux as my desktop system for over a decade. Perhaps out of habit, or maybe just a bit lazy, I still plan to do a fair amount of work on the Linux desktop. So I turned to the most well-known dictionary tool on Fedora: Goldendict.

Goldendict

This is the old version. There’s now a new version called goldendict-ng.

Goldendict-ng

Installation

We’re using F43, install the new ng version directly:

❯ sudo dnf install goldendict-ng

To install the old version:

❯ sudo dnf install goldendict

Launch

Launch by Command Line

Running goldendict-ng directly will throw Segmentation fault (core dumped). Use the following command to launch:

QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb goldendict-ng

Launch by Menu

❯ cp /usr/share/applications/io.github.xiaoyifang.goldendict_ng.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

❯ vi ~/.local/share/applications/io.github.xiaoyifang.goldendict_ng.desktop
// Find the `Exec=` line and change it to:
Exec=env QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb goldendict-ng %u

Adding Dictionaries

A freshly installed GoldenDict-NG may be empty. You can enable Chinese-English translation in two ways:

Method A: Online Translation

If you’re connected to the internet, you can plug in Youdao, Baidu, or Google Translate directly.

  1. Open GoldenDict-NG, click Edit -> Dictionaries (or press F4).

  2. In the window that pops up, switch to the Websites tab.

  3. Click Add on the right, then enter the following:

    • Name: Youdao Translate

    • URL: https://dict.youdao.com/search?q=%GDWORD%

  4. Check Enabled, then click Apply at the bottom right.

Method B: Offline Dictionary Files

Linux users love offline dictionaries — instant lookup with extremely detailed explanations. It supports MDict format (.mdx and .mdd).

  1. Download dictionaries: You can download dictionary files (.mdx) from the web.

  2. Store dictionaries: Put the mdx files into /home/yahoon/Dicts (You can create a customized dir). Drop the downloaded .mdx files (and .mdd files for images/sounds if any) in there.

  3. Import dictionaries:

    • In GoldenDict, click Edit -> Dictionaries.

    • Under the first “Sources” tab, go to the Files tab and click Add on the right, then select the Dicts folder you just created.

    • Check Recursive (so it scans subfolders).

    • Click Apply or Scan Now at the bottom right.

Clipboard Monitoring

Right-click the tray icon and select “Toggle clipboard monitoring”:

1.jpg

Now every time you copy text, the translation will pop up automatically.