When you access a specific web page or any text file which is written in a different language or use an ASCII message, then your system will not be able to detect language.
Because of that, you will see “X” all over the file. All this happens because of missing UTF-8, or you have selected the wrong locales.
Through this article, we will enable UTF-8 support using the terminal in Linux. Before that, first understand what is UTF-8, Why the system requires UTF-8 support?
Note:- In this article, some of the text will not appear as we intend so that you may see a square box or any other characters.
What is UTF-8?
We live in the 21st century where every information gets transfer in a second over the internet, just like reading this guide. It’s doesn’t matter whether you are in the US or Japan.
Because of vast data reachability, there is a problem of language locale inconsistency.
For example
The actual text is “TrendOceans からのこのガイド” In case of missing UTF-8 support. You will see “X TPՎTrendOceans.”
Now you know why the problem occur and let’s solve this issue.
First of all, open a terminal and type the following command to check whether the locale package is available on your system.
# dpkg -l localestrendoceans@LINUX:~# dpkg -l locales
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-==============-=============-============-=================================>
ii locales 2.32-0ubuntu3 all GNU C Library: National Language >
lines 1-6/6 (END)If the output is not the same as above, then you need to install the local package.
# apt-get install localesIn the next step, you need to reconfigure the locale package, type the below command, and make sure to run as root.
# dpkg-reconfigure localesNow you will see the number of locales available to generate the following UTF-8 support. Using the arrow key, navigate up and down to choose en_US-UTF-8 or any other UTF-8 locale.
Package configuration
Configuring locales
Locales are a framework to switch between multiple languages and allow users to use their language, country, characters, collation order, etc.
Please choose which locales to generate. UTF-8 locales should be chosen by default, particularly for new installations. Other character sets may be useful for backwards compatibility with older systems and software.
Locales to be generated:
[ ] All locales ↑ [ ] aa_DJ ISO-8859-1 [ ] aa_DJ.UTF-8 UTF-8 [ ] aa_ER UTF-8
[ ] aa_ER@saaho UTF-8
[ ] ********** UTF-8
[*] en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
[ ] ********** UTF-8 ↓After that, again, it will ask you to select the default locale. On this screen, also select en_US.UTF-8.
Default locale for the system environment:
None
C.UTF-8
en_US.UTF-8
******.UTF-8Now, wait for the Linux System to generate an automated locale according to your selected preference.
trendoceans@LINUX:~# dpkg-reconfigure locales
Generating locales (this might take a while)...
ar_AE.UTF-8... done
ar_BH.UTF-8... done
ar_DZ.UTF-8... done
ar_EG.UTF-8... done
ar_IN.UTF-8... done
ar_IQ.UTF-8... done
ar_JO.UTF-8... done
ar_KW.UTF-8... done
ar_LB.UTF-8... done
ar_LY.UTF-8... done
ar_MA.UTF-8... done
ar_OM.UTF-8... done
ar_QA.UTF-8... done
ar_SA.UTF-8... done
ar_SD.UTF-8... done
ar_SS.UTF-8... done
ar_SY.UTF-8... done
ar_TN.UTF-8... done
ar_YE.UTF-8... done
de_AT.UTF-8... done
de_BE.UTF-8... done
de_CH.UTF-8... done
de_DE.UTF-8... done
de_IT.UTF-8... done
de_LI.UTF-8... done
de_LU.UTF-8... done
en_AG.UTF-8... done
en_AU.UTF-8... done
en_BW.UTF-8... done
en_CA.UTF-8... done
en_DK.UTF-8... done
en_GB.UTF-8... done
en_HK.UTF-8... done
en_IE.UTF-8... done
en_IL.UTF-8... done
en_IN.UTF-8... done
en_NG.UTF-8... done
en_NZ.UTF-8... done
en_PH.UTF-8... done
en_SG.UTF-8... done
en_US.UTF-8... done
en_ZA.UTF-8... done
en_ZM.UTF-8... done
en_ZW.UTF-8... done
es_AR.UTF-8... done
es_BO.UTF-8... done
es_CL.UTF-8... done
es_CO.UTF-8... done
es_CR.UTF-8... done
es_CU.UTF-8... done
es_DO.UTF-8... done
es_EC.UTF-8... done
es_ES.UTF-8... done
es_GT.UTF-8... done
es_HN.UTF-8... done
es_MX.UTF-8... done
es_NI.UTF-8... done
es_PA.UTF-8... done
es_PE.UTF-8... done
es_PR.UTF-8... done
es_PY.UTF-8... done
es_SV.UTF-8... done
es_US.UTF-8... done
es_UY.UTF-8... done
es_VE.UTF-8... done
fr_BE.UTF-8... done
fr_CA.UTF-8... done
fr_CH.UTF-8... done
fr_FR.UTF-8... done
fr_LU.UTF-8... done
it_CH.UTF-8... done
it_IT.UTF-8... done
ja_JP.UTF-8... done
pt_BR.UTF-8... done
pt_PT.UTF-8... done
ru_RU.UTF-8... done
ru_UA.UTF-8... done
zh_CN.UTF-8... done
zh_HK.UTF-8... done
zh_SG.UTF-8... done
zh_TW.UTF-8... done
Generation complete.After completing the above process, update the .bashrc file with the following line To open the .bashrc file using the command line editor
#nano .bashrc
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8The Next step is to verify the changes using command locale.
#localeLANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_US:en
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=
To see the changes reboot or log out your system.
I think so you able to change the locale in your Linux system. We have run the steps and commands mentioned in this article on a Ubuntu 20.04 LTS system, but it will also work on other distributions. If you are facing any difficulty to change the locale, then comment to us.
A man with a tech effusive who has explored some of the amazing technology stuff and is exploring more. While moving towards, I had a chance to work on Android development, Linux, AWS, and DevOps with several open-source tools.