How do I change the language via a terminal?

Question

Using system settings I changed my language to Arabic and deleted the English language from the settings. Then the computer lagged and it logged out - now I can't log back in because the login is in Arabic.

So is there a way to default my language via terminal, default the login password language, or login via terminal which is still in English. I only have access to guest and a terminal.

I changed the pasword to something that could be translated into arabic http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/resetpassword - then loged in and used system settings to default.

score 60 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 28 '17 at 19:20

60

Edit two files:

sudoedit /etc/default/locale:
```
LANG="en_US"
LANGUAGE="en_US:en"
```
sudoedit ~/.pam_environment:
```
LANG=en_US
LANGUAGE=en_US
```

Logout and Login or Reboot.

edited Aug 28 '17 at 19:20

Zanna

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answered May 07 '12 at 16:57

harisibrahimkv

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5

Nano is also installed by default. :-) – LiveWireBT May 07 '12 at 17:29
3

If you want to understand what changing these variables means: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Locale – yuric Apr 29 '13 at 17:25
4

Also need `LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8` – Artem P Jan 19 '16 at 00:28
3

If using KDE, you might want to check `~/.KDE/env/setlocale.sh` too, as it might conflict. – stragu Jun 22 '16 at 04:15
2

This also works for "Bash on Ubuntu" on Windows 10. – Oct 18 '16 at 06:46
2

@hlcs You shouldn't set `LC_ALL` in `/etc/default/local`, and definitely shouldn't need it. `LC_ALL` prevents you from using fine grained control of `LC_*` vars. Users / apps would need to `unset LC_ALL` to do this. On the other hand `LANG` sets the defaults for all the `LC_*` vars that have not been set explicitly. If `LANG` is not working for you then you need to trace through your profile and find out what is overriding it. – Philip Couling Jun 01 '17 at 15:41
@couling - After NOT setting LC_ALL, I got these errors: https://pastebin.com/AgerQC7q -- On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS - and while using apt to dist-upgrade. – Apache Aug 18 '17 at 07:30
@Shiki `If LANG is not working for you then you need to trace through your profile and find out what is overriding it.` But looking at your error you may need too look at this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2499794/how-to-fix-a-locale-setting-warning-from-perl – Philip Couling Aug 18 '17 at 09:35
Works like a charm on Raspbian too (`sudo raspi-config` just caused more problems than good) – Zoe Jan 20 '19 at 15:29

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 17 '20 at 08:57

5

In order to get back to English, I had to change my locale in 3 places:

/etc/default/locale

by running this command:

$ sudo update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LANGUAGE= LC_MESSAGES= LC_COLLATE= LC_CTYPE=

~/.config/plasma-localerc and ~/.config/plasma-locale-settings.sh

By going to my KDE settings / Regional Settings / Language

And reboot.

answered Apr 17 '20 at 08:57

kolypto

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I only had to run `echo export LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 | sudo tee -a ~/.bashrc` – Jonathan Mar 16 '21 at 13:39

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 07 '22 at 13:49

1

You can also do this interactively using dpkg-reconfigure:

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure locale

and follow the steps on the next screens.

After that, logout/login again and/or reboot.

answered Oct 07 '22 at 13:49

s.k

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How do I change the language via a terminal?

3 Answers3

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