Fixing locales: Difference between revisions
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I was having locale problems. Why? I don't know. But all of a sudden, applications like K3B would complain about locales not being properly set. | == Intro == | ||
I was having locale problems. Why? I don't know. But all of a sudden, applications like K3B ('''see the hack at the end of this article''') would complain about locales not being properly set. | |||
For example, viewing a man page in Konsole would generate a warning about "LC_ALL" not being set | For example, viewing a man page in Konsole would generate a warning about "LC_ALL" not being set | ||
| Line 5: | Line 6: | ||
So, after reading a zillion webpages, I finally punted and just appended to my <code>~/.bashrc</code> file and man pages worked again | So, after reading a zillion webpages, I finally punted and just appended to my <code>~/.bashrc</code> file and man pages worked again | ||
< | <syntaxhighlight lang="bash"> | ||
export LANG="en_US.UTF-8" | export LANG="en_US.UTF-8" | ||
export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" | export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" | ||
export LANGUAGE="en_US.UTF-8" | export LANGUAGE="en_US.UTF-8" | ||
export LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8" | export LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8" | ||
</ | </syntaxhighlight> | ||
I ended up editing <code>/var/lib/locales/supported.d/local</code> | I ended up editing <code>/var/lib/locales/supported.d/local</code> | ||
| Line 25: | Line 26: | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
then I did a | then I did a | ||
< | <syntaxhighlight lang="bash"> | ||
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales | sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales | ||
</ | </syntaxhighlight> | ||
which updated my system | which updated my system | ||
That command seems to regenerate all the locales in <code>/usr/lib/locale/</code> | That command seems to regenerate all the locales in <code>/usr/lib/locale/</code> | ||
== Documentation == | |||
There are a dizzying number of files, programs and settings involved in locale; and worse -- there are differences between distributions on what commands work, how they work; and where the configurations are stored. | There are a dizzying number of files, programs and settings involved in locale; and worse -- there are differences between distributions on what commands work, how they work; and where the configurations are stored. | ||
I suggest that you start off with | I suggest that you start off with | ||
< | <syntaxhighlight lang="bash"> | ||
man:/locale-gen | man:/locale-gen | ||
</ | </syntaxhighlight> | ||
to get an idea of what files are involved in your distribution. | to get an idea of what files are involved in your distribution. | ||
| Line 45: | Line 46: | ||
All the files in <code>/var/lib/belocs</code> | All the files in <code>/var/lib/belocs</code> | ||
will get updated when you run | will get updated when you run | ||
< | <syntaxhighlight lang="bash"> | ||
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales | sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales | ||
</ | </syntaxhighlight> | ||
== See also == | == See also == | ||
| Line 57: | Line 58: | ||
locale | locale | ||
locale -a | locale -a | ||
locale -m | locale -m | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
are | are | ||
in | in | ||
<code>/etc/default/locale</code> | <code>/etc/default/locale</code> | ||
I have these two lines: | I have these two lines: | ||
| Line 68: | Line 69: | ||
LANGUAGE="en_US:en" | LANGUAGE="en_US:en" | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
in | in | ||
<code>/etc/environment</code> | <code>/etc/environment</code> | ||
I have | I have | ||
| Line 76: | Line 77: | ||
LANG="en_US.UTF-8" | LANG="en_US.UTF-8" | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
in | in | ||
<code>/usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED</code> | <code>/usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED</code> | ||
there is a very long list of the supported locales. You can take any number of them and add them to your | there is a very long list of the supported locales. You can take any number of them and add them to your | ||
<code>/var/lib/locales/supported.d/local</code> | <code>/var/lib/locales/supported.d/local</code> | ||
{{ambox | {{ambox | ||
|text= Caution: each supported locale on your system will take up something like 50MB of space -- so don't choose them all. | |text= Caution: each supported locale on your system will take up something like 50MB of space -- so don't choose them all. | ||
}} | }} | ||
== | == Hack == | ||
Setting environment variables prior to launching an application is one way to work around this problem, but obviously does not solve it on a system-wise basis. I used this command in KMenu to get around the fact that the variable ''was'' set system-wide, but didn't get picked up in the application environment: | Setting environment variables prior to launching an application is one way to work around this problem, but obviously does not solve it on a system-wise basis. I used this command in KMenu to get around the fact that the variable ''was'' set system-wide, but didn't get picked up in the application environment: | ||
< | <syntaxhighlight lang="bash"> | ||
env LC_ALL='en_US.UTF-8' && k3b %U | env LC_ALL='en_US.UTF-8' && k3b %U | ||
</ | # or the simpler | ||
LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 k3b %U | |||
</syntaxhighlight> | |||
and appended to an existing bug report with the workaround information | and appended to an existing bug report with the workaround information | ||
(note that double quotes do not work in the KMenu environment.) | (note that double quotes do not work in the KMenu environment.) | ||
[[Category:Howto]] | |||
[[Category:System Administration]] | |||
Latest revision as of 13:32, 24 February 2025
Intro
I was having locale problems. Why? I don't know. But all of a sudden, applications like K3B (see the hack at the end of this article) would complain about locales not being properly set.
For example, viewing a man page in Konsole would generate a warning about "LC_ALL" not being set
So, after reading a zillion webpages, I finally punted and just appended to my ~/.bashrc file and man pages worked again
export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"
export LANGUAGE="en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
I ended up editing /var/lib/locales/supported.d/local
which already had the line
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
to which I added the following two lines
en_US ISO-8859-1 en_US.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15
then I did a
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
which updated my system
That command seems to regenerate all the locales in /usr/lib/locale/
Documentation
There are a dizzying number of files, programs and settings involved in locale; and worse -- there are differences between distributions on what commands work, how they work; and where the configurations are stored. I suggest that you start off with
man:/locale-gen
to get an idea of what files are involved in your distribution.
For some reason, I do have an archive on my system (in addition to all the independent files) even though I've never issued the gen command with the archive option, and /etc/belocs/locale-gen.conf
does not set the default to archive.
All the files in /var/lib/belocs
will get updated when you run
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
See also
man:locale(1)
from that man page, you learn what
locale locale -a locale -m
are
in
/etc/default/locale
I have these two lines:
LANG="en_US.UTF-8" LANGUAGE="en_US:en"
in
/etc/environment
I have
PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games" LANGUAGE="en_US:en" LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
in
/usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED
there is a very long list of the supported locales. You can take any number of them and add them to your
/var/lib/locales/supported.d/local
 |
Caution: each supported locale on your system will take up something like 50MB of space -- so don't choose them all. |
Hack
Setting environment variables prior to launching an application is one way to work around this problem, but obviously does not solve it on a system-wise basis. I used this command in KMenu to get around the fact that the variable was set system-wide, but didn't get picked up in the application environment:
env LC_ALL='en_US.UTF-8' && k3b %U
# or the simpler
LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 k3b %U
and appended to an existing bug report with the workaround information (note that double quotes do not work in the KMenu environment.)
