Ubuntu

Easy & temporarily switch console language

Asked by Tiefflieger

Since I'm german, my ubuntu is all german. But sometimes I'd like to switch the language of the console (i.e. the messages I get from programs I started there) because I want to post the output of the console in a bugreport.

Is there an easy way? Something like

> s[witch]l[anguage] english

that doesn't affect the whole system, just the console.

Thanks in advance :-)

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Tony Pursell (ajpursell) said : 		#1

Hi

I'm not sure I can give you a complete answer, but I know there is a command called gettext. If this is used in a program or script it will output the correct language if the translation files are provided. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettext

and from a terminal

info gettext

In the wikipedia article it says you would change the LC_MESSAGES environment variable to the language you want, but I think it is more complicated than that. Look at the manual

http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/

Hope that helps. If it does please mark this as Solved.

Tony

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