How do I add locale to ubuntu server?

I currently have those locales:

locale -a C en_AG en_AG.utf8 en_AU.utf8 en_BW.utf8 en_CA.utf8 en_DK.utf8 en_GB.utf8 en_HK.utf8 en_IE.utf8 en_IN en_IN.utf8 en_NG en_NG.utf8 en_NZ.utf8 en_PH.utf8 en_SG.utf8 en_US.utf8 en_ZA.utf8 en_ZW.utf8 POSIX 

How can I install ru_RU locale to my server?

12 Answers

1. Check which locales are supported:

   locale -a 

2. Add the locales you want (for example ru):

   sudo locale-gen ru_RU sudo locale-gen ru_RU.UTF-8 

3. Run this update command:

   sudo update-locale 

I would go another route, which is IMO better suited to the Ubuntu style. Use the packages provided. There are packages for each locale, and they do all the work for you... no need to edit /var files, which I always believed were not meant to be edited manually.

sudo apt-get install language-pack-XX 

where XX stands for the language code. Installing a language will install also all the country-specific variants (for example, installing language-pack-it will install it_CH.utf8 and it_IT.utf8, installing for NL will install nl_AW, nl_AW.utf8, nl_BE.utf8 and nl_NL.utf8).

1. check which locales are supported :

   less /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED 

2. Add locale to list of generated

   echo ru_RU.UTF8 >> /var/lib/locales/supported.d/local 

3. Regenerate list (it will invoke locale-gen...)

    sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales 

I've found locale-gen to be your friend. as in (adding hebrew utf8 for example):

root@world:~# locale-gen he_IL.UTF-8 

you can even rehash it like so:

root@world:~# dpkg-reconfigure locales 

and check that you did good:

root@world:~# locale -a 

I found this solution way simpler than adding stuff to text files, even though it is what it does.

echo ru_RU.UTF8 >> /var/lib/locales/supported.d/local 

I get the following message at point 3: "Error: Bad entry 'ru_RU.UTF8'"

This work for me:

echo ru_RU.UTF-8 UTF-8 >> /var/lib/locales/supported.d/local 

Use Ubuntu language packs. All supported languages are available in default repositories:

apt-cache search language-pack 

A full example of locale switching in Ubuntu (server) version:

jani@example:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=14.04 DISTRIB_CODENAME=trusty DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS" 

All available (i.e. already installed) locales can be listed with:

locale -a 

My current locale is en_IE:

jani@example:~$ locale LANG=en_IE.UTF-8 LANGUAGE= LC_CTYPE="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_NUMERIC="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_TIME="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_COLLATE="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_MONETARY="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_MESSAGES=POSIX LC_PAPER="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_NAME="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_ADDRESS="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_TELEPHONE="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_MEASUREMENT="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_IE.UTF-8" LC_ALL= jani@example:~$ date Sat Nov 1 15:36:51 UTC 2014 jani@example:~$ 

Because I didn't have ru locales I have to install ru language pack:

jani@example:~$ sudo apt-get -y install language-pack-ru [..] Generating locales... ru_RU.UTF-8... done ru_UA.UTF-8... done Generation complete. jani@example:~$ 

Now the ru locales are available. The system default locale is set by editing /etc/default/locale:

jani@example:~$ sudo vi /etc/default/locale # Created by cloud-init v. 0.7.5 on Mon, 27 Oct 2014 18:46:13 +0000 LANG="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_MESSAGES=POSIX jani@example:~$ 

Re-login and check your brand new locale:

jani@example:~$ locale LANG=ru_RU.UTF-8 LANGUAGE= LC_CTYPE="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_NUMERIC="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_TIME="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_COLLATE="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_MONETARY="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_MESSAGES=POSIX LC_PAPER="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_NAME="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_ADDRESS="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_TELEPHONE="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_MEASUREMENT="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_IDENTIFICATION="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_ALL= jani@example:~$ date Сб. нояб. 1 15:43:45 UTC 2014 jani@example:~$ 

Modify /etc/locale.gen, uncommenting or adding the locales you wish generated. Then run sudo locale-gen.

You can check that the locales are added with locale -a, which will show all locales.

For a small server that did not support the locale I needed (locale -a did not list it), all I had to do was run

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales 

which provided text-based dialogues that I could select from (page up/down, up/down, space to select, tab to OK, and Enter to save). It automatically regenerated the locales.

As others have stated, you will need to restart any process that needs the new locale.

If you don't have locales installed:

apt-get update && apt-get install locales 

After that, just add the desired locale

sudo locale-gen pt_BR 

1. Check which locales are already supported in your distribution. Open or cat the file /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED and copy the desired locale to be added.

2. on terminal enter sudo locale-gen locale_name.

   For example sudo locale-gen de_DE.iso885915@euro

3. enter sudo update-locale

4. Check if the locale is installed with locale -a

Couldn't comment so I have to add this as the answer.

I needed to add a 'special' type of locale sr_RS.utf8@latin in Ubuntu.

Command:

sudo locale-gen sr_RS.utf8@latin 

does not add the @latin to the available locales. In order to succeed in that the command should look like this:

sudo locale-gen 8 

The command:

sudo locale -a 

now shows:

sr_RS sr_RS@latin sr_RS.utf8 sr_RS.utf8@latin 

Pay attention to the syntax difference between the result of locale -a and the way it is added by locale-gen commands.

In addition to the other answers…

If for some reason you need to add a locale that isn't listed in /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED (the same list is used as base for /etc/locale.gen and sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales), you can manually call localedef, e.g.:

sudo localedef -c -i uk_UA -f CP1251 uk_UA.CP1251 

(/usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED contains only UTF-8 and KOI8-U codesets for uk_UA but not CP1251.)