Difference between revisions of "Locale"
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==Setting per user locale== | ==Setting per user locale== | ||
As we mentioned earlier, some users might want to define a different locale than the system-wide locale. | As we mentioned earlier, some users might want to define a different locale than the system-wide locale. | ||
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The script {{ic|etc/profile.d/locale.sh}} overrides the ''system-wide'' locale with the one found in {{ic|$HOME/.config/locale.conf}}. This file does not exist by default. | The script {{ic|etc/profile.d/locale.sh}} overrides the ''system-wide'' locale with the one found in {{ic|$HOME/.config/locale.conf}}. This file does not exist by default. | ||
Revision as of 02:42, 8 March 2014
zh-CN:Locale Locales are used in Linux to define which language the user uses. As the locales define the character sets being used as well, setting up the correct locale is especially important if the language contains non-ASCII characters.
Locale names are defined using the following format:
<lang>_<territory>.<codeset>[@<modifiers>]
Contents
Enabling necessary locales
Before a locale can be used on the system, it has to be enabled first. To list all available locales, use:
$ locale -a
To enable a locale, uncomment the name of the locale in the file /etc/locale.gen
. This file contains all the available locales that can be used on the system. Revert the process to disable a locale. After the necessary locales are enabled, the system needs to be updated with the new locales:
# locale-gen
To display the locales now currently in use, use:
$ locale
US English example
First uncomment the following locales in /etc/locale.gen
:
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
Then update the system as root:
# locale-gen
Setting the locale system-wide
To define the system-wide locale used on the system, set LANG
in /etc/locale.conf
.
locale.conf
contains a new-line separated list of environment variable assignments: besides LANG
, it supports all the LC_*
variables, with the exception of LC_ALL
.
/etc/locale.conf
does not exist by default and must be created manually.locale
is to your liking during installation, you can save a little time by doing: # locale > /etc/locale.conf
while chrooted./etc/locale.conf
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
An advanced example configuration would be:
/etc/locale.conf
# Enable UTF-8 with Australian settings. LANG="en_AU.UTF-8" # Keep the default sort order (e.g. files starting with a '.' # should appear at the start of a directory listing.) LC_COLLATE="C" # Set the short date to YYYY-MM-DD (test with "date +%c") LC_TIME="en_DK.UTF-8"
You can set the default locale in locale.conf
also using localectl
, for example:
# localectl set-locale LANG="de_DE.UTF-8"
See man 1 localectl
and man 5 locale.conf
for details.
They will take effect after rebooting the system and will be set for individual sessions at login.
Setting fallback locales
Programs which use gettext for translations respect the LANGUAGE
option in addition to the usual variables. This allows users to specify a list of locales that will be used in that order. If a translation for the preferred locale is unavailable, another from a similar locale will be used instead of the default. For example, an Australian user might want to fall back to British rather than US spelling:
~/.bashrc
export LANGUAGE="en_AU:en_GB:en"
or system-wide
/etc/locale.conf
LANG="en_AU" LANGUAGE="en_AU:en_GB:en"
Setting per user locale
As we mentioned earlier, some users might want to define a different locale than the system-wide locale.
The script etc/profile.d/locale.sh
overrides the system-wide locale with the one found in $HOME/.config/locale.conf
. This file does not exist by default.
$HOME/.config/locale.conf
LANG="de_DE.UTF-8" LANGUAGE="de_DE.UTF-8"
Setting collation
Collation, or sorting, is a little different. Sorting is a goofy beast and different locales do things differently. To get around potential issues, Arch used to set LC_COLLATE="C"
in /etc/profile
. However, this method is now deprecated. To enable this behavior, simply add the following to /etc/locale.conf
:
LC_COLLATE="C"
Now the ls command will sort dotfiles first, followed by uppercase and lowercase filenames. Note that without a LC_COLLATE
setting, locale aware apps sort by LC_ALL
or LANG
, but LC_COLLATE
settings will be overridden if LC_ALL
is set. If this is a problem, ensure that LC_ALL is not set by adding the following to /etc/profile
instead:
export LC_ALL=
Note that LC_ALL is the only LC variable which cannot be set in /etc/locale.conf
.
Setting the first day of the week
In many countries the first day of the week is Monday. To adjust this, change or add the following lines in the LC_TIME
section in /usr/share/i18n/locales/<your_locale>
:
week 7;19971130;5 first_weekday 2 first_workday 2
And then update the system:
# locale-gen
Troubleshooting
My terminal doesn't support UTF-8
Unfortunately some terminals do not support UTF-8. In this case, you have to use a different terminal. Here are some terminals that have support for UTF-8:
- vte-based terminals
- gnustep-terminal
- konsole
- mlterm
- rxvt-unicode
- xterm
Xterm doesn't support UTF-8
xterm only supports UTF-8 if you run it as uxterm
or xterm -u8
.
Gnome-terminal or rxvt-unicode doesn't support UTF-8
You need to launch these applications from a UTF-8 locale or they will drop UTF-8 support. Enable the en_US.UTF-8
locale (or your local UTF-8 alternative) per the instructions above and set it as the default locale, then reboot.