[SOLVED] Command line output language does not match locale

Enderbyte09 · 10-08-2023, 09:05 PM

So I recently had an "excellent" idea to add a second locale to my computer (zh-CN). To test it, I set it to the primary. It worked, so I changed it back to the old one (en-CA). However, now all of my command-line output is in Chinese! I tried to fix it by setting the locale to en_CA.UTF-8. This did not work and the CLI output is still chinese.

Code:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_CA.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=en_CA.UTF-8

That is the output of my locale.
I found that by running export LC_ALL=C, I could get it back to english but UTF 8 characters do not work. I would prefer my terminal support UTF 8 and English like it used to.
I also added to my bash startup profile

Code:

export LC_ALL=en_CA.UTF-8
export LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
export LANGUAGE=en

to no avail. I also tried using locale-gen to generate en-CA only. I also noticed that the Firefox file selection dialogue is also in Chinese.

Every setting page I can find says my locale is en-CA or en-US (which are both fine). Can anyone help me fix this?

I am on Manjaro Linux 23.0.1 KDE Edition

lvm_ · 10-09-2023, 03:23 AM

I vaguely remember having a similar calamity, and I *think* I fixed it by setting the variables in /etc/default/locale and rebooting.

pan64 · 10-09-2023, 03:55 AM

Yes, I think bash startup profile is not the right location for it. But I think if you could add a second locale you can revert it too.

Enderbyte09 · 10-09-2023, 10:13 AM

I found that I can fix the command output language by running

Code:

export LANGUAGE=en_CA.UTF-8

. However, some selection dialogues and notifications are still in Chinese. Oh well. It will improve my learning...

MadeInGermany · 10-09-2023, 02:06 PM

Yes, you should not mix UTF-8 and non-UTF-8 locales!

LANG is legacy. The new one is LC_ALL. Both will also set the LC_* components.
Check with the command

Code:

locale

LANGUAGE is new to me...

Also try /etc/locale.conf
and the command

Code:

localectl

Enderbyte09 · 10-09-2023, 06:46 PM

I fixed what seems to be the last issues by running localepurge to clear out everything except English.

Thank you so much for your help!