Problem with locale in Kubuntu?

[Oceanwatcher]

I am running Kubuntu 9.04 with KDE 4.3.1.

In System settings, my region/country is set to Brazil, language is US English. I have not added any languages, I chose it during installation.

So everything in the interface is in English, but all units, measurements, currency, time etc. corresponds with what is normal here in Brazil. I am a Norwegian that do not speak Portuguese well enough to operate any programs in Portuguese. :-) (working on it!)

If I run "locale" in a terminal I get this:

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

This does not correspond with what I have set in the system settings.

The result is that Skype is displaying the time in 12h format, and I really prefer 24h format. It would also mean that any program that rely on the locale setting for getting their regional settings correct, will have a problem.

Why does not the locale settings update according to the System settings in KDE?

[Ole Juul]

Re: Problem with locale in Kubuntu?

You should be able to change the numbers, money, date, etc. independently on the "Country/Region & Language" page in system settings. You can also change the time zone under "time and date" in system settings. The "Country or region" setting is just a place for various programs to get their own defaults. I believe that is where FireFox gets the info to use various regional versions of Google, such as google.dk for example. I haven't tried it, (just a warning!) but you can probably change the region to anything you like without screwing anything up.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Problem with locale in Kubuntu?

To me, this is already messed up as there are settings in the underlying system that does not change when I change the setting in the GUI. I am not one place in the world in the GUI and another place in the world in the underlying system.

This is just as important as having the clock on the system and in the OS running at the correct times (Yes, I know that these are UTC and local).

As long as applications uses the locale settings to get their units right (e.g. displaying time in the correct format), I have to consider this a bug. Unless, of course, someone show me how I can make sure these are changing whenever I change the settings in the GUI. Is there a checkbox I forgot to check?

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Problem with locale in Kubuntu?

The "Country or region" setting is just a place for various programs to get their own defaults.

Obviously, this is NOT where Skype gets it's defaults. They get it from the locale setting in the OS, not from the country and region setting in the GUI. This would be like running one time in the GUI that did not correspond to the one in the OS (not talking about hardware).

[kubicle]

Re: Problem with locale in Kubuntu?

Try setting your locales:
LC_ALL=pt_BR.UTF-8
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
(check that these are correct)

in either /etc/default/locale (this should be system wide)
or in your ~/.bashrc (for example, if you use bash...you need to start a new bash session or source .bashrc for the change to take effect)


The kde setting probably only affects kde software/software that respect kde settings.