Changing language / region for a user account in Handy Linux
 

Recently installed Handy Linux (dual boot with XP) on a 10 year old laptop. Runs great, so fast.

I installed an English system and created several user accounts. Some will be for English speakers and some will be for Japanese speakers.

I downloaded the region / language application and it appears to be successfully installed. But when I search for it I can't find it, and it doesn't appear in the normal user settings panel. I've fished around and can't find it.

I think this is because Handy Linux tries to make itself fool-proof but limiting what can be tweaked.

My guess is I might have to use command line but I don't know how to do that.

Anyway: how to change language settings on an already installed Handy Linux?

Welcome to the forum!

The big problem here is that you're using a new Linux that no-one will know anything about. Handy is Debian-based and I just happen to have another Debian derivative installed for reviewing, so I've done some experiments.

Firstly, you need to run
dpkg-reconfigure locales
Make sure that both the English and Japanese locales are selected and then set the default to NONE.

The next step is to set the user locale for each user, and this is another big problem. Arch says you should create a file .config/locale.conf and specify the locale in that:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...er_user_locale
You may find there's a file .config/user-dirs.locale — if so, try altering that. Another possible place is .dmrc.

I couldn't get any of these to work, but Handy might be different. Personally, I'd never use a Debian-based distro when anything slightly out of the ordinary needs doing: the documentation is so often missing or incomprehensible.

Some success
 

Thanks!

I've gotten some of it to work. I ran dpkg-reconfigure locales and I can see Japanese now.
Problem is when I chose "none" for system locale it didn't change anything, and when I chose "Japanese" it made all user accounts into Japanese (but I want some to be in English.) So, in other words, Japanese locales are available on my machine now, but system-wide I'm either English only or Japanese-only for all user accounts.

The archlinux wiki link looks like it will fix that problem, but this is a newbie board and I'm definitely a newbie and I don't know how to run or edit the scripts it mentions.