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chomwitt

Member

Registered: 2019-09-24

Posts: 200  

Managing language support in a console only installation.

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 ?

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Camtaf

Member

Registered: 2019-11-19

Posts: 541  

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

Possibly, create a new user....

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

Last edited by Camtaf (2026-04-13 16:31:14)

chomwitt

Member

Registered: 2019-09-24

Posts: 200  

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

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 ?

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ralph.ronnquist

Administrator

From: Battery Point, Tasmania, AUS

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 1,640  

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

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)

chomwitt

Member

Registered: 2019-09-24

Posts: 200  

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

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

Last edited by chomwitt (Yesterday 01:55:15)

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Lujoomen

Member

From: Finland

Registered: 2026-03-27

Posts: 2  

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

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

chomwitt

Member

Registered: 2019-09-24

Posts: 200  

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

@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.

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ralph.ronnquist

Administrator

From: Battery Point, Tasmania, AUS

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 1,640  

Re: Managing language support in a console only installation.

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.