Working in different countries or having to work in a multilingual environment requires your computer to be set up to support this. Use the YaST language and timezone modules to install additional system languages and adjust the country and timezone settings accordingly. The YaST language module also lets you change your system language or determine a primary language that you use most often. Install secondary languages to get optional localizations if you need to start applications or desktops in languages other than the primary one. The YaST timezone module allows you to adjust your country and timezone settings and synchronize your system clock against a time server.
Depending on how you use your desktop and whether you want to switch the entire system to another language or just the desktop environment itself, there are several ways to achieve this:
Proceed as described in Section 6.1.1, “Installing Additional System Languages” and Section 6.1.2, “Switching the System Language” to install additional localized packages with YaST and set the default language. Changes are effective after relogin. To ensure that the entire system reflects the change, reboot the system or close and restart all running services, applications, and programs.
Provided you have previously installed the desired language packages for your desktop environment with YaST as described below, you can switch the language of your desktop using the desktop's control center. After X has been restarted, your entire desktop reflects your new choice of language. Applications not belonging to your desktop framework are not affected by this change and may still appear in the language that was set in YaST.
To run a single application in another language (that has already been installed with YaST), use one of the following commands:
LANG=de_DE
application
to start any
standard X application or GNOME application in German. For other
languages, use the appropriate language code. Get a list of all
language codes available using the locale
-av
command.
KDE_LANG=de
application
to start any KDE
application in German. For other languages, use the appropriate
language code.
The main language was selected during installation (see Section 1.6, “Welcome”) and keyboard and time zone settings were adjusted. However, you can install additional languages on your system and determine which of the different languages installed should be taken as the default. Before installing additional languages, determine which of them should be activated after you install it. YaST knows two different language categories:
The primary language set in YaST applies to the entire system, including YaST and the desktop environment. This language is used whenever available unless you manually specify another language.
Secondary languages are languages selected manually for a specific situation. For example, use a secondary language to start an application in a certain language, for example, to do word processing in this language.
To install an additional language, proceed as follows:
As root
, start YaST.
Select
+ .Select the desired languages from the list of languages offered in
. When you leave this dialog with , YaST installs the additional localized software packages. The system is multilingual, but you need to set the desired language explicitly to start an application in a language other than the primary one.To make this language the default (the primary language), select it under
:Adapt the keyboard to the new primary language and adjust the time zone, if appropriate.
Select root
and to determine the exact locale:
ctype only
adjusts the
LC_TYPE
variable in
/etc/sysconfig/language
for root
, which
sets the localization for language-specific function calls.
yes
sets the language for root
to the same
as the language for local users. no
means the
language settings for root
are not affected by language
changes. All locale
values remain
unset.
Disable this box, if you do not want to use UTF-8 encoding for
root
.
If your locale was not included in the list of primary languages available, try explicitly specifying it here. However, some of these localizations may be incomplete.
Leave this dialog and apply your settings with
.Switching the system language is similar to installing additional languages. Use the YaST language module to change the primary language and to adjust keyboard and time zone. Once YaST has applied your changes and any open X sessions have been restarted, YaST, applications, and the desktop reflect your new language settings.