English language and Greek locale

[grumpypenguin]

Hi everyone. Here's something I've noticed in my experimentations with Linux Mint. Although I live in Greece, I prefer to use English-language menus in my menus and everything, because (a) many of the Greek translations are painfully wrong in syntax and spelling, (b) having English-language menus, warnings etc makes it a lot easier for me to communicate with foreign Linux users when I'm troubleshooting.

However, this is where Linux Mint still hasn't done things quite as well as openSUSE or Ubuntu. In Greece, we use the metric system, our currency is (still) the euro, when we have to say "one thousand" or "one million" in numbers, we don't write "1,000" or "1,000,000" but "1.000" and "1.000.000" instead; and we write decimals in the same way the Germans do: 0,123 not as 0.123

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the closest thing to this is Linux Mint's Danish implementation of the English language; it uses the metric system alright, but it doesn't fit the bill completely (not least because Denmark wisely chose to stay out of the Euro).

Could the developers look into this matter and improve things a bit for us?

Thanks.

[xenopeek]

This is quite common; I have the same complaint, I want Dutch regional settings but English language. Both to support others, and because Google doesn't have any solutions for me when I give it a Dutch language error message... I can understand there are uses for localization, but after having used computers in English for almost thirty years, basically having learned English from it, I wish it was easier to switch regional settings and not use localization.

Anyway, here are my steps to add regional setting and spelling check for your language, when running from a default install with English language.

To enable Greek locale for your system:
Edit the locale file

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gksudo gedit /var/lib/locales/supported.d/local

The file should have the following content, add any missing lines (I want day and month names in English, but if you want those in Greek drop the last line):

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en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
el_GR.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8

Save & close the file. Then reconfigure the locale:

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sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
gksudo gedit /etc/default/locale

Add lines at the end (replace en_GB.UTF-8 with el_GR.UTF-8 in the last line if you want day and month names in Greek instead of in English):

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LC_MONETARY="el_GR.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="el_GR.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"

Save & close the file. Done.

To enable Greek spelling check in Firefox:
Go to any webpage with a text field; right-click the text field and make sure there is a check mark on "Check Spelling". Right-click the text field again, and select Languages, and then either your language or "Add Dictionaries..." to add it (after which repeat this step to select it again).

To enable Greek locale and spelling check in LibreOffice:

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sudo apt-get install language-support-writing-el

Then open LibreOffice Calc or Writer, go to Tools -> Options... -> Language Settings and under Languages change "Locale setting" and "Western" to your language.

[dman]

This was very helpful to me. It helped me solve half my problem -- even though I'm using Xfce and not Main Edition.

I installed a new Xfce system in English and then decided I wanted the login screen and default language to be German. Thus began an odyssey lasting much of the last day.

I now have a German login screen that sticks to German on reboot. Thanks. But the keyboard is still stuck on English-only at the login screen.

Once inside the user sessions, the keyboard is fine and switchable (that took some figuring and research until I landed on the xfce-kbd panel applet).

How do I get the login screen to use a German keyboard when the displayed language is German, please?