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This page indicates how to install / use Debian in your local language.

Configuration

Programs that support local technology use environment variables to determine the conventions to use for date and time formatting, character display, currency display and codepage selection.

The following environment variables affect locale related behaviour of the system:

Standard

Get root and type dpkg-reconfigure locales and select the locale(s) you want to generate. At the end, you'll be asked which one should be the default. If you have users who access the system through ssh, it is recommended that you choose None as your default locale.

This changes /etc/default/locale and /etc/locale.gen (in older versions of Debian, also /etc/environment). If you chose a default locale other than None above, it will be in /etc/default/locale and will override the LANG variable supplied by ssh. This is highly inconvenient.

If you've upgraded to Lenny from an older version of Debian and have leftover LANG=... content in /etc/environment, you should comment it out (type editor /etc/environment and put a # character in front of the line, and then save it).

Now, optionally, edit /etc/profile as follows:

SSH

SSH Server

If you've upgraded from a very old version of Debian (before Etch), your sshd_config(5) may not contain the correct AcceptEnv directive to let the ssh client pass locale variables. Edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and make sure it contains this line:

AcceptEnv LANG LC_*

You should issue the command /etc/init.d/ssh restart to make it take effect. Also, you should log out current ssh connection and log back in. Already-running programs will not be affected.

SSH Client

If you've upgraded from a very old version of Debian (before Etch), your sshd_config(5) may not contain the correct SendEnv directive to let the ssh client pass locale variables. Edit your /etc/ssh/ssh_config file and make sure it contains this line:

SendEnv LANG LC_*

You should log out current ssh connection and log back in. Already-running session will not be affected.

GDM

In GDM login screen, pick a proper locale from the list of installed locales by clicking the locale button in the bottom of the screen.

Alternatively, edit ~/.dmrc. For example, to set the user-wide locale to en_DK.utf8, ~/.dmrc could be something like this:

[Desktop]
Session=gnome
Language=en_DK.utf8
Layout=fi

Manually

Keyboard layout

See: debian-reference.

See Also


CategorySystemAdministration