How to change the language system wide? [Solved]

[williamdosa]

Hello i installed MX Linux 17.1 for a friend in English just for me to understand things when i tweak. Now though, he needs Turkish. I can't find from where to change from English to Turkish for the death of me... MX Tweak tool? Nothing


I can see language packs for individual programs like Firefox, Thunderbird but how on earth can i change system wide language? Through a terminal? He's also a Linux newcomer and if similar changes are this "hidden" i don't know... :/

Thanks in advance!

[fehlix]

Run this from the command line:

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

and navigate to Turkish locale "tr_TR.UTF-8" with arrow key
and press space-bar to select,
press tab-key -> OK
and select default locale "tr_TR.UTF-8" Turkish.
Logout/login to take effect.

Welcome to the forum

[Jerry3904]

There may be other changes you will want or need to make. Check Section 3.7.2 of the Users Manual, where fehlix's solution is described, for other similar
items to look at.

You don't have to know already that it is there, use Ctrl-F and search on "language", then go down a few hits until you get there.

[fehlix]

Run this from the command line:

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

and navigate to Turkish locale "tr_TR.UTF-8" with arrow key
and press space-bar to select,
press tab-key -> OK
and select default locale "tr_TR.UTF-8" Turkish.
Logout/login to take effect.

Welcome to the forum

Alternatively to the above manual selection procedure here a quick-fix for changing the default system locale.
You can set system language with this one-liner; as an example : to set to Turkish tr_TR and a 2nd availble locale to en_US:
( copy and paste into terminal command line this ugly long one-liner quick-fix locale changer )

Code: Select all

SET_LOCALE="tr_TR en_US"; sudo -k; set -x; sudo sed -i -E  "/^$/b; /(${SET_LOCALE// /|}).UTF-8 UTF-8/{s/^#*\s*//;b};  /^[^#]/s/^/# /;"  /etc/locale.gen;  grep -v '^#' /etc/locale.gen; sudo locale-gen ; sudo LANG="${SET_LOCALE%% *}.UTF-8" update-locale LANG="${SET_LOCALE%% *}.UTF-8"; cat /etc/default/locale ; grep -v '^#' /etc/locale.gen  ;  set +x

Adjust SET_LOCALE="tr_TR en_US" and change SET_LOCALE quoted string
to a space-separted list with all locales you want to be available with the system.
The first with the string will become the default system-locale.
examples:
SET_LOCALE="tr_TR de_DE fr_FR en_US"
SET_LOCALE="fr_FR en_US"
SET_LOCALE="es_AR es_ES en_US"
SET_LOCALE="es_AR es_ES es_MX en_US"
SET_LOCALE="nl_NL en_US de_DE"


EDIT: fixed set +/-x

[skidoo]

What's up with the "downloader.vip" spam links within the OP's posts, both here and same (spam links) in OP's other posted topic?

[Gordon Cooper]

Welcome, williamdosa. In recent months there have been several users from Turkey downloading MX. Hopefully one may read this forum thread and
be able to provide more language help.

[Utopia]

Spam links deleted.
Henry

[D800]

Run this from the command line:

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

and navigate to Turkish locale "tr_TR.UTF-8" with arrow key
and press space-bar to select,
press tab-key -> OK
and select default locale "tr_TR.UTF-8" Turkish.
Logout/login to take effect.

Welcome to the forum

Almost a three year old post and it saved me a lot of trouble. My son has a way of monkeying around with my MX Linux distro to make things more difficult for me.
However, that simple command line entry got my machine back to English so I can operate again.
Thank you Fehlix and the MX Linux community.