Changing The Language & Keyboard Layout On Various Distributions

Version 1.0
Author: Oliver Meyer <o [dot] meyer [at] projektfarm [dot] de>
Last edited 04/03/2008

This document describes how to reconfigure the default language and the keyboard layout on various distributions so that they suit your location. I made this howto for our VMware images where the keyboard layout is always set to German and a few users have problems to configure the language and keyboard layout on these images.

This howto is a practical guide without any warranty - it doesn't cover the theoretical backgrounds. There are many ways to set up such a system - this is the way I chose.

1 Preliminary Note

If you're using a system with a desktop environment like Gnome or KDE you should use its tools to configure the default language and the keyboard layout. In the following steps I'll show you how to change the default language and the keyboard layout within the console on various distributions.

2 Fedora 8 Server / CentOS 5.x

2.1 Default Language

system-config-language

2.2 Keyboard Layout

system-config-keyboard

3 Debian Etch Server

3.1 Default Language

dpkg-reconfigure locales

3.2 Keyboard Layout

dpkg-reconfigure console-data

4 Ubuntu 7.10 Server

4.1 Default Language

sudo set-language-env -E

4.2 Keyboard Layout

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

5 Mandriva 2008 Server

5.1 Default Language

localedrake

5.2 Keyboard Layout

keyboarddrake

6 Suse 10.X Server

6.1 Default Language

yast2

Select "System" on the left side and then "Language" on the right side. Change the language and save the settings with "Accept"

6.2 Keyboard Layout

yast2

Select "Hardware" on the left side and then "Keyboard Layout" on the right side. Change the keyboard layout and save the settings with "Accept".

7 Links

• Fedora: http://fedoraproject.org/
• Debian: http://www.debian.org/
• Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/
• Mandriva: http://www.mandriva.com/
• Suse: http://www.opensuse.org/