Frank wrote: > Sorry sent this to Bob instead of the list. Getting old :)
We are all getting old. And at the same rate too! :-) > Bob Proulx wrote: > >Somewhere along the way you have set the default system locale to one > >that doesn't exist. What is the value stored here: > > > > cat /etc/default/locale > > > >Is that a valid locale on your system? > > frank@frank-debian:~$ cat /etc/default/locale > LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 > LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 Seems a valid combination. But does that mean that you haven't generated the en_US.UTF-8 locale on your system? That is the only thing I can think of. In which case you will have repaired it by the dpkg-reconfigure if you ensured that en_US.UTF-8 was one of the selections from the muti-select list. > Is this what should be in /etc/default/locale ?? Saying "should" invokes an opinion. My opinion is that it should not. :-) But that is only my preference. The file exists to configure the system. If there were no other valid options then it wouldn't need a configuration file. :-) Other people may very well prefer system messages in their native language. Therefore the system is designed to allow admins to configure their system for other languages. Other things are definitely valid in that file. > Seems strange. Not strange. Unfamiliar maybe. This file replaced the same use of it in the /etc/environment file. And there have been other attempts as well. I expect it will go away in the future and be replaced with yet another configuration. > >The easiest way to fix it is this way: > > > > # dpkg-reconfigure locales > > [...configure en_US.UTF-8 for generation and select None for the > > system locale...] > Did that Bob and selected None. And what are the new contents of /etc/default/locale? cat /etc/default/locale I expect they will have nothing but comments there now. It is always good to verify actions like this. At that point if it isn't too much inconvenience then I would reboot. Because that would ensure that all of the running daemons of the system get the new setting. For example cron was previously started using the old setting. It is still running. It won't get the new setting until it is restarted. You could restart it manually. But there is always one more forgotten daemon. A reboot guarentees that everything is restarted using the new setting. > Hope that fixes it...but I am still wondering about the > content of /etc/default/locale ?? That file sets the locale for all of the daemons at boot time. The default is the traditional Unix language. If you set None then it will be as all Unix machines have always been. With that file you are instructing a different locale / language. For example a French speaking admin might prefer system messages logged in French and might set fr_FR.UTF-8 so that /var/log/syslog is in their native language. This has advantages and disadvantages. Messages in the standard POSIX C locale are easier to search for in Google. Messages localized won't have as much discussion about it. But any discussion found would likely be in the native language. I personally think it is better to keep to the POSIX standard language. Searching is easier. Discussion is centralized. But that doesn't work if you don't speak the language. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca of the computer system world at this time is the POSIX C locale. > Thanks for the detailed reply. Happy to help! Bob
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
