Set System Language?

fhsm · 2009-01-14 20:39:47

How can I change the system language from en-GB to en-US? On login I selected English (American) and told the pop-up that I wanted to make that my default moving forward. I found a post on the ubuntu forums saying I needed to run /usr/share/locales/install-language-pack en_US. So I did, but I'm still having to change dictionaries application by application.

How can I force the whole system onto US English? I've already changed AbiWord, Firefox, and claws' spell check dictionary over to US but it's going to get old having to change every application.

flsantos · 2009-01-14 22:10:05

I believe that you have to edit rc.xml or something like that (I'm not on #! right now) but on menu there is one item that you can edit openbox configurations, there you can change keymaps. I dit it for portuguese and I saw it for en-US.

Last edited by flsantos (2009-01-14 22:21:34)

Scrat · 2009-01-14 22:32:55

I don't think this is Openbox related smile

Try this howto and see if it helps
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LocaleConf

fhsm · 2009-01-15 01:50:16

I would be surprised if this is an openbox issue. I didn't see anything in rc.xml that looked like the right item. I had a look at the link but didn't quite follow it.

here's are the three lines from printenv that seem relevant:

GDM_XSERVER_LOCATION=local
LANG=en_US
GDM_LANG=en_US

They look right to me. Is this an issue that of language at the time of pkg install? I tried an apt-get update upgrade but that didn't fix the problem.

Nik_Doof · 2009-01-15 20:51:51

Yes and no, do this:

 sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

That'll backdate your locales generation. Edit the default locale

sudo nano /etc/default/locale

If the right langpacks are installed, and your locale is generated with the reconfigure it should be OK.

fhsm · 2009-01-15 22:53:30

Thanks for the help! Unfortunately this didn't seem to fix my problem. Here's what happened:
I did the dpkg-reconfigure and got:

Generating locales...
  en_AU.UTF-8... done
  en_BW.UTF-8... done
  en_CA.UTF-8... done
  en_DK.UTF-8... done
  en_GB.UTF-8... done
  en_HK.UTF-8... done
  en_IE.UTF-8... done
  en_IN.UTF-8... done
  en_NG.UTF-8... done
  en_NZ.UTF-8... done
  en_PH.UTF-8... done
  en_SG.UTF-8... done
  en_US.ISO-8859-1... up-to-date
  en_US.UTF-8... up-to-date
  en_ZA.UTF-8... done
  en_ZW.UTF-8... done

What was that doing and why do I have so many flavors of english? Can / Should I un-install some of these? As I've been manually changing programs the list there has been huge (larger than that even that)

In /etc/default/locale it used to read:

LANG="en_GB.UTF-8"

which I changed to:

LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

Is that what you mean by edit? Or should I be adding to that list? I've also had a bit of a look around on this UTF-8 thing and don't really understand why I'd chose to go with UTF-8 or not. Going off the ubuntu forums it seems that some people really care. Any thoughts?

Elsewhere I found it suggested that I edit /var/lib/locales/supported.d what is that folder? It had a file 'en' in it which contains:

en_HK.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_DK.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_IN UTF-8
en_ZW.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_NZ.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_PH.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_NG UTF-8
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_AU.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_SG.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_BW.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_ZA.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_CA.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_IE.UTF-8 UTF-8

/var/lib/locales/supported.d also has a file called local which contains:

en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_US ISO-8859-1
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

Last edited by fhsm (2009-01-15 23:25:23)

fhsm · 2009-01-17 17:41:54

Anyone with any other suggestions? This is getting really old because apps don't seem to hold the reset past a system restart. Having to set paper size, units, spell check language, etc for every app every time isn't so much fun.

ghoti · 2009-01-19 05:59:49

In addition to changing the default language in gdm from Gb to US, I also changed the language in ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh. There is a language section in the default installation that goes like this:

# Set keyboard map if different than UK
# Uncomment one to enable, or define your own.
setxkbmap us # United States
# setxkbmap ca # Canada
# setxkbmap fr # Francais
# setxkbmap br # Brazil
# setxkbmap de # Germany
# setxkbmap cz # Czech Republic
# setxkbmap it # Italy
# setxkbmap pl # Poland
# setxkbmap nl # Netherlands
# etc.

I basically uncommented the setxkbmap us line. That was the first thing I did (I think), then changed the default language in gdm (or it could have been the other way around - it's been too long).

Hope this will work for you,
Ghoti cool

radioz · 2009-01-31 20:27:03

Just an update to this thread.

As far as I can tell, I only needed to modify /etc/default/locale and replace GB with US:

sudo gedit /etc/default/locale (or use whatever editor you have installed)

change:
LANG="en_GB.UTF-8"

to:

LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

Save the changes, and re-boot. It seems to have fixed my local in the terminal (env|grep LANG) as well as Firefox (about:config). I haven't tried all apps yet, but it seems to going the right direction.

Note that I did not make any of the changes referred to in earlier posts.

Good luck,

radioz

michaelramm · 2009-02-01 04:11:45

I had the same effect as radioz. I changed the one place and it seems to have permeated throughout the whole system.

I am checking on my CrunchPad since I have not made any changes to it regarding locale. It did indeed change the date format in Thunar from 31/01/2009 to 01/31/2009. So I know that setting that locale is meaningful.

Michael

Last edited by michaelramm (2009-02-01 04:17:11)

fhsm · 2009-02-01 08:52:16

I actually never had a problem with the keyboard map thinking it was in the UK, which is odd now that I think about it.

I did another install and the first thing I did was swap my lang locale (I mean very first) and I had a much smoother go of it. I still had to fiddle around with a few of the pre-installed apps but anything I installed after that was set correctly. Claws Mail has been the most difficult to make behave itself both times.

blacklotus27 · 2009-04-18 12:52:15

I also had the problem of finding a fast painless way to change my locale from en_GB to en_US. After trying the meny above mentioned ways I realized I could also just set the default locale from gdm. I just logged out and switched the locale and set it to default when it asked me when I logged in.

fhsm · 2009-04-18 16:33:37

fhsm wrote:

... On login I selected English (American) and told the pop-up that I wanted to make that my default moving forward. ...

Not sure I follow. This is a bit old but as I recall I started this thread after the login method failed to work for me. Are you saying you found another way of using GDM's default or are you saying you did what I described in the first post and it worked for you?

blacklotus27 · 2009-06-01 07:23:16

fhsm wrote:

fhsm wrote:
... On login I selected English (American) and told the pop-up that I wanted to make that my default moving forward. ...
Not sure I follow. This is a bit old but as I recall I started this thread after the login method failed to work for me. Are you saying you found another way of using GDM's default or are you saying you did what I described in the first post and it worked for you?

Sorry for the confusion. I'm kind of a linux noob, but i did what you said in the first post [i didn't know that was called a gdm] and it worked for me the second time i did it.

fhsm · 2009-06-01 11:05:09

Good to know.

nabilalk · 2010-01-27 20:52:24

radioz wrote:

Just an update to this thread.
As far as I can tell, I only needed to modify /etc/default/locale and replace GB with US:
sudo gedit /etc/default/locale (or use whatever editor you have installed)
change:
LANG="en_GB.UTF-8"
to:
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
Save the changes, and re-boot. It seems to have fixed my local in the terminal (env|grep LANG) as well as Firefox (about:config). I haven't tried all apps yet, but it seems to going the right direction.
Note that I did not make any of the changes referred to in earlier posts.
Good luck,
radioz

That fixed things for me, thanks radioz

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#1 2009-01-14 20:39:47

Set System Language?

#2 2009-01-14 22:10:05

Re: Set System Language?

#3 2009-01-14 22:32:55

Re: Set System Language?

#4 2009-01-15 01:50:16

Re: Set System Language?

#5 2009-01-15 20:51:51

Re: Set System Language?

#6 2009-01-15 22:53:30

Re: Set System Language?

#7 2009-01-17 17:41:54

Re: Set System Language?

#8 2009-01-19 05:59:49

Re: Set System Language?

#9 2009-01-31 20:27:03

Re: Set System Language?

#10 2009-02-01 04:11:45

Re: Set System Language?

#11 2009-02-01 08:52:16

Re: Set System Language?

#12 2009-04-18 12:52:15

Re: Set System Language?

#13 2009-04-18 16:33:37

Re: Set System Language?

#14 2009-06-01 07:23:16

Re: Set System Language?

#15 2009-06-01 11:05:09

Re: Set System Language?

#16 2010-01-27 20:52:24

Re: Set System Language?

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