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recklessswing

Member

From: Türkiye

Registered: 2020-12-18

Posts: 144  

Can't change system language in Devuan 6 XFCE

I've tried anything I know of, but still can't make language Turkish.
I've tried locale-gen then select the Turkish language, whatever it didn't work.
~$ locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

Camtaf

Member

Registered: 2019-11-19

Posts: 536  

Re: Can't change system language in Devuan 6 XFCE

Maybe - https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/linux-uni … -in-linux/

or - https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install- … e-on-linux

or - https://www.linuxoperatingsystem.net/lo … -in-linux/

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,867  

Re: Can't change system language in Devuan 6 XFCE

As root:

dpkg-reconfigure locales
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

Then I think you need to reboot. (Log out/in might be enough)

switching2Devuan

Member

Registered: 2022-05-12

Posts: 31  

Re: Can't change system language in Devuan 6 XFCE

I have the same problem on a second notebook after an install to hd from a live-system of Devuan 6.0 from a usb-stick.

I ran "dpkg-reconfigure locales" to set it to my language-setting "de_DE.UTF-8" but it was already set from the install.
Still, I get the following message when opening a terminal:

bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_COLLATE: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_COLLATE: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory

When running "localehelper", I get this:

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
	LANGUAGE = (unset),
	LC_ALL = (unset),
	LC_CTYPE = (unset),
	LC_NUMERIC = (unset),
	LC_COLLATE = (unset),
	LC_TIME = (unset),
	LC_MESSAGES = (unset),
	LC_MONETARY = (unset),
	LC_ADDRESS = (unset),
	LC_IDENTIFICATION = (unset),
	LC_MEASUREMENT = (unset),
	LC_PAPER = (unset),
	LC_TELEPHONE = (unset),
	LC_NAME = (unset),
	LANG = "en_US.UTF-8"
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").

And "locale -v" gives me this message:

locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

I don't know why it can't be set as on my main working machine (Devuan 4.0).
Maybe a bug?
Let me know if you need me to provide more informaton.

If everything fails I could also try a new install from the netinstall.iso and see if it works any better.

Last edited by switching2Devuan (2026-01-02 01:17:45)

switching2Devuan

Member

Registered: 2022-05-12

Posts: 31  

Re: Can't change system language in Devuan 6 XFCE

I finally solved the problem by installing from scratch with the most current netinstall.iso.
Language and locale now work as they are supposed to.

(But now I encountered a problem with non-accessible terminals; (if interested, see this thread).

Last edited by switching2Devuan (2026-01-04 21:28:54)

onedevone

Member

Registered: 2026-01-01

Posts: 13  

Re: Can't change system language in Devuan 6 XFCE

On pre-excalibur version (netinstall) there were packages missing for locales. Debian wiki stated completely different packages than Devuan for the languages. What Debian wiki said was inaplicable for Devuan. Devuan had no such packages (nor wiki). I found some differently named packages ind Devuan repos and installed them. Then it all worked. At the moment can't remember the names and if was carried over to Devuan Excalibur or it was fixed and now Debian wiki works on Devuan for changing the system language.

Last edited by onedevone (2026-03-06 08:58:48)