Dev1 Galaxy Forum / Managing language support in a console only installation.

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

dummy@example.com (ralph.ronnquist) — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 23:20:34 +0000

You may need to use setupcon and friends. I guess most convenience support has been done with GUI in mind. Unless you already done it, I suggest you explore man -k keyboard.

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

dummy@example.com (chomwitt) — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 22:37:59 +0000

@Lujoomen my setup is console only . setxkbmap is in the x11-xkb-utils.
Anyway.. i gave it a try since x11-xkb-utils doesnt pull all X .. but setxkbmap compaints that it cannot open the display.

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

dummy@example.com (Lujoomen) — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 07:50:59 +0000

For temporary session, this seemed to work for me with alt+shift toggle.

setxkbmap -layout us,gr -variant ,polytonic -option grp:alt_shift_toggle

To check current layout options you can run query and it would print currently active rules, model, layout, options.

setxkbmap -query

You probably dont need to do any reconfiguring if you find layout text file in

/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gr

If you need to add or create layout, then you would need reconfiguring after changes with

dpkg-configure xkb-data

To check if there are errors in the file

setxkbmap -symbols /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gr

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

dummy@example.com (chomwitt) — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 01:50:20 +0000

1. setxkbmap is part of X so i guess it affects X clients.

2. i created a new user and set gr locale as default but i cant write or see greek system messages.

i tried also :
$ sudo apt-get install console-data
$ sudo loadkeys /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/gr.kmap.gz
cant open 'linux-with-alt-and-altgr' because kbdfile already opened ../include/linux-with-alt-and-altgr.inc.gz
syntax error unexpected error

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

dummy@example.com (ralph.ronnquist) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 23:02:40 +0000

afaik dpkg-reconfigure locales changes the locale setup so that programs that started after that will experience a new language environment. It doesn't change anything else. See e.g. man locale

How did you determine that changeing locale doesn't work?
Which writing tool or tools are you using; do you know whether they adapt to system locale?

Your keyboard configuration is separate. Most keyboards are physically built for a single language, so for them the story is to use mapping tables for keys so that the keys generate character codes in perhaps different ways than the key tops indicate. See eg man keyboard about that. I tend to use setxkbmap to switch the keyboard mapping (between us and se)

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

dummy@example.com (chomwitt) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 17:26:47 +0000

Strangely that itsfoss article ends with :

And that’s all! Now you’re able to change your default language as many times you want directly from the terminal.

But how do you do that ?

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

dummy@example.com (Camtaf) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:25:42 +0000

Possibly, create a new user....

Else, https://itsfoss.com/change-locales-linux/

Managing language support in a console only installation.

dummy@example.com (chomwitt) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:11:18 +0000

I want to be able to write other languages (in addition to english).
I tried with no help ;
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

what should i do ?