1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
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2 | <!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
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3 | "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
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4 | <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent">
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5 | %general-entities;
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6 | ]>
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7 |
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8 | <sect1 id="ch-config-locale" revision="systemd">
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9 | <?dbhtml filename="locale.html"?>
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10 |
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11 | <title>Configuring the System Locale</title>
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12 |
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13 | <indexterm zone="ch-config-locale">
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14 | <primary sortas="e-etc-locale-conf">/etc/locale.conf</primary>
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15 | </indexterm>
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16 |
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17 | <para>The <filename>/etc/locale.conf</filename> file below sets some
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18 | environment variables necessary for native language support. Setting
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19 | them properly results in:</para>
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20 |
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21 | <itemizedlist>
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22 | <listitem>
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23 | <para>The output of programs being translated into your native language</para>
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24 | </listitem>
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25 | <listitem>
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26 | <para>The correct classification of characters into letters, digits and other
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27 | classes. This is necessary for <command>bash</command> to properly accept
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28 | non-ASCII characters in command lines in non-English locales</para>
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29 | </listitem>
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30 | <listitem>
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31 | <para>The correct alphabetical sorting order for the country</para>
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32 | </listitem>
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33 | <listitem>
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34 | <para>The appropriate default paper size</para>
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35 | </listitem>
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36 | <listitem>
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37 | <para>The correct formatting of monetary, time, and date values</para>
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38 | </listitem>
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39 | </itemizedlist>
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40 |
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41 | <para>Replace <replaceable><ll></replaceable> below with the two-letter code
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42 | for your desired language (e.g., <quote>en</quote>) and
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43 | <replaceable><CC></replaceable> with the two-letter code for the appropriate
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44 | country (e.g., <quote>GB</quote>). <replaceable><charmap></replaceable> should
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45 | be replaced with the canonical charmap for your chosen locale. Optional
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46 | modifiers such as <quote>@euro</quote> may also be present.</para>
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47 |
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48 | <para>The list of all locales supported by Glibc can be obtained by running
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49 | the following command:</para>
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50 |
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51 | <screen role="nodump"><userinput>locale -a</userinput></screen>
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52 |
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53 | <para>Charmaps can have a number of aliases, e.g., <quote>ISO-8859-1</quote>
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54 | is also referred to as <quote>iso8859-1</quote> and <quote>iso88591</quote>.
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55 | Some applications cannot handle the various synonyms correctly (e.g., require
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56 | that <quote>UTF-8</quote> is written as <quote>UTF-8</quote>, not
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57 | <quote>utf8</quote>), so it is the safest in most
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58 | cases to choose the canonical name for a particular locale. To determine
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59 | the canonical name, run the following command, where <replaceable><locale
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60 | name></replaceable> is the output given by <command>locale -a</command> for
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61 | your preferred locale (<quote>en_GB.iso88591</quote> in our example).</para>
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62 |
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63 | <screen role="nodump"><userinput>LC_ALL=<replaceable><locale name></replaceable> locale charmap</userinput></screen>
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64 |
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65 | <para>For the <quote>en_GB.iso88591</quote> locale, the above command
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66 | will print:</para>
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67 |
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68 | <screen><computeroutput>ISO-8859-1</computeroutput></screen>
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69 |
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70 | <para>This results in a final locale setting of <quote>en_GB.ISO-8859-1</quote>.
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71 | It is important that the locale found using the heuristic above is tested prior
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72 | to it being added to the Bash startup files:</para>
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73 |
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74 | <screen role="nodump"><userinput>LC_ALL=<locale name> locale language
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75 | LC_ALL=<locale name> locale charmap
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76 | LC_ALL=<locale name> locale int_curr_symbol
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77 | LC_ALL=<locale name> locale int_prefix</userinput></screen>
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78 |
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79 | <para>The above commands should print the language name, the character
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80 | encoding used by the locale, the local currency, and the prefix to dial
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81 | before the telephone number in order to get into the country. If any of the
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82 | commands above fail with a message similar to the one shown below, this means
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83 | that your locale was either not installed in Chapter 6 or is not
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84 | supported by the default installation of Glibc.</para>
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85 |
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86 | <screen><computeroutput>locale: Cannot set LC_* to default locale: No such file or directory</computeroutput></screen>
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87 |
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88 | <para>If this happens, you should either install the desired locale using the
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89 | <command>localedef</command> command, or consider choosing a different locale.
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90 | Further instructions assume that there are no such error messages from
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91 | Glibc.</para>
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92 |
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93 | <!-- FIXME: the xlib example will become obsolete in the future.-->
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94 | <para>Some packages beyond LFS may also lack support for your chosen locale. One
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95 | example is the X library (part of the X Window System), which outputs the
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96 | following error message if the locale does not exactly match one of the character
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97 | map names in its internal files:</para>
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98 |
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99 | <screen><computeroutput>Warning: locale not supported by Xlib, locale set to C</computeroutput></screen>
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100 |
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101 | <para>In several cases Xlib expects that the character map will be listed in
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102 | uppercase notation with canonical dashes. For instance, "ISO-8859-1" rather
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103 | than "iso88591". It is also possible to find an appropriate specification by
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104 | removing the charmap part of the locale specification. This can be checked
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105 | by running the <command>locale charmap</command> command in both locales.
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106 | For example, one would have to change "de_DE.ISO-8859-15@euro" to
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107 | "de_DE@euro" in order to get this locale recognized by Xlib.</para>
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108 |
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109 | <para>Other packages can also function incorrectly (but may not necessarily
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110 | display any error messages) if the locale name does not meet their expectations.
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111 | In those cases, investigating how other Linux distributions support your locale
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112 | might provide some useful information.</para>
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113 |
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114 | <para>Once the proper locale settings have been determined, create the
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115 | <filename>/etc/locale.conf</filename> file:</para>
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116 |
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117 | <screen><userinput>cat > /etc/locale.conf << "EOF"
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118 | <literal>LANG=<replaceable><ll>_<CC>.<charmap><@modifiers></replaceable></literal>
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119 | EOF</userinput></screen>
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120 |
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121 | <para>Note that you can modify <filename>/etc/locale.conf</filename> with the
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122 | systemd <command>localectl</command> utility. To use
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123 | <command>localectl</command> for the example above, run:</para>
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124 |
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125 | <screen role="nodump"><userinput>localectl set-locale LANG="<replaceable><ll>_<CC>.<charmap><@modifiers></replaceable>"</userinput></screen>
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126 |
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127 | <para>You can also specify other language specific environment variables such
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128 | as <envar>LANG</envar>, <envar>LC_CTYPE</envar>, <envar>LC_NUMERIC</envar> or
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129 | any other environment variable from <command>locale</command> output. Just
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130 | separate them with a space. An example where <envar>LANG</envar> is set as
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131 | en_US.UTF-8 but <envar>LC_CTYPE</envar> is set as just en_US is:</para>
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132 |
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133 | <screen role="nodump"><userinput>localectl set-locale LANG="en_US.UTF-8" LC_CTYPE="en_US"</userinput></screen>
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134 |
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135 | <note><para>Please note that the <command>localectl</command> command can
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136 | be used only on a system booted with systemd.</para></note>
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137 |
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138 | <para>The <quote>C</quote> (default) and <quote>en_US</quote> (the recommended
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139 | one for United States English users) locales are different. <quote>C</quote>
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140 | uses the US-ASCII 7-bit character set, and treats bytes with the high bit set
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141 | as invalid characters. That's why, e.g., the <command>ls</command> command
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142 | substitutes them with question marks in that locale. Also, an attempt to send
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143 | mail with such characters from Mutt or Pine results in non-RFC-conforming
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144 | messages being sent (the charset in the outgoing mail is indicated as <quote>unknown
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145 | 8-bit</quote>). It's suggested that you use the <quote>C</quote> locale only
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146 | if you are certain that you will never need 8-bit characters.</para>
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147 |
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148 | <!--
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149 | <para>UTF-8 based locales are not supported well by many programs.
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150 | Work is in progress to document and, if possible, fix such problems, see
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151 | <ulink url="&blfs-book;introduction/locale-issues.html"/>.</para>
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152 | -->
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153 |
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154 | </sect1>
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