Oh boy, I don’t seem to be able to figure out how the language & local
setting works under openSUSE 11.1 / KDE 4.2.
HERE_IS_HOW_I’D_LIKE_TO_SET_IT_UP:
Locale: Japan (meaning Yen as currency; Tokyo time zone; comma to
separate thousands; period as decimal symbol).
Main (=primary?) language: English (US)
Additional languages: Japanese, German, French, English (UK)
HERE_IS_WHAT_I’VE_DONE:
Opened Yast2 > System > Language.
Set ‘Primary language’ to English (US).
Checked Japanese, German, French, English (UK) under ‘Additional
Languages’.
Opened Personal Settings > Regions and Language.
Set ‘Country or Region’ to Japan.
Added languages English (UK), Japanese, German, French (in this order).
QUESTIONS:
Why can’t I add English (US) as a language in Personal Settings >
Regions and Language?
(I checked under Yast: Funny thing, when I choose ‘English (US)’ as
Primary Language, I can’t add it as an additional language, and it hence
doesn’t appear in the Regions and Language > Add language menu … )
Why do I get KDE menues in Japanese -despite- the first language of
the list being ‘English (UK)’?
You get Japanese because that is the language associated with the
locale.
The KDE4 keyboard layout module restricts you to four languages (the
recommended maximum is three). KDE3 allows you to install more. In fact,
because I added KDE4 on top of KDE3, I still have five languages
available. So, it is possible (I don’t guarantee it), that if you
disable the additional languages in KDE4 and install KDE3 to use its
keyboard layout module, you may be able to get closer to what you want.
thanks for the reply. Both items sound like bugs to me, or at least
things that could be improved on. I don’t see a reason why locale should
automatically include language (not to mention multilingual countries
like Belgium etc.), nor why there should be a limit on the number of
languages activated. I suppose I’ll have to learn now how to file bug
reports …
Hm, I’m also using KDE 4.2 on top of 3.5.10. Will take a look whether I
can activate more languages, too.
Ok, so there is definitely a bug, and probably more than one.
BUGS
(1) In KDE3, the language associated with the locale/country chosen
should be automatically added on top of the language list. This doesn’t
happen in KDE4.
(2) Something is wrong with with the link between Yast2 and
PersonalSettings.
I’ve deleted all languages except English (US) and Japanese using Yast2
> System > Languages. Yet, the ‘Add languages’ menu in Personal Settings
> Country & Language gives me 4 options (de, jp, fr, en-uk), but no
en-us. This shouldn’t be.
(3) The PersonalSettings also don’t work without problems. When I put
Japanese, German, or French on top of the languages list, the menus
switch to that particular language upon logging back in, no matter what
the locale is (I’ve set it to ‘Undefined (English)’ now).
However, when I move English-UK to the top, the language set previously
remains in use.
QUESTIONS
(1) Can anyone confirm this strange behavior?
(2) Does anyone know what files store the settings for Yast2 > System >
Language and for PersonalSettings > Region & Language?
(3) Is there a way to use the command-line to set the language
environment (in openSUSE 11.1, KDE 4.2)?
