Localization

External resources

	Wikipedia

	Gentoo doc

This article describes the localization (abbreviated L10N) and internationalization (abbreviated I18N) of software.

System

Locale

External resources

	Wikipedia

A locale defines settings such as the language, the date/time format and the paper size that are used in a certain country. You can find possible locales in /usr/share/i18n/locales. E.g. for Germany choose de-DE.UTF-8. A UTF-8 based locale is strongly recommended.

Kernel

You need to activate the following kernel options:

Kernel configuration

File Systems -->
  Native Language Support -->
    (utf8) Default NLS Option
    <*> NLS UTF8

Generate locales

Add your locales to /etc/locale.gen (optional: delete all other locales):

File/etc/locale.gen

de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8

Afterwards run locale-gen to generate the locales. locale -a lists all installed locales.

Use locales

Use eselect locale or manually add your locale to /etc/env.d/02locale so the system uses the locale:

File/etc/env.d/02locale

LANG="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="C"

To apply the changes run:

root # env-update
root # source /etc/profile

locale now shows your locale.

USE flag

Portage knows the global USE flag nls for enabling support for localization in other packages (default for almost all profiles). Also set the LINGUAS variable to support only your languages, e.g. for German:

File/etc/portage/make.conf

USE="... nls ..."
LINGUAS="de de_DE"

A list of locales that can be used is provided as /usr/portage/profiles/desc/linguas.desc:

user $ grep -i german /usr/portage/profiles/desc/linguas.desc

---

de - German locale
de_DE - German locale for Germany
de_FR - German locale for France

After setting this you want to update your system so the changes take effect:

root # emerge --ask --changed-use --deep @world

Console font

Set the font used by the console. Valid values can be found in /usr/share/consolefonts.

Set your console font in /etc/conf.d/consolefont, e.g. for German:

File/etc/conf.d/consolefont

CONSOLEFONT="lat9w-16"

Keyboard layout

Set the keyboard layout used by the console. Valid values can be found in /usr/share/keymaps/YOUR_ARCH.

Set your keyboard layout in /etc/conf.d/keymaps, e.g. for German:

File/etc/conf.d/keymaps

KEYMAP="de-latin1"

Time zone

See the system time article.

Software

X.Org

See the evdev article.

KDE

See the KDE article.

Input methods

To type non-Western scripts, you may need to use an input method.