[Intrepid Beta] KDE does not use the language selected during install

[Ryan Kavanagh]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

When using the beta alternate cd (amd64), I selected English -> Canada as a default language. When I booted up into my system, the console / VT's environment had LANG=en_CA.UTF-8 set, but KDE4 was set to Generic English.

[Ugra Dániel (daniel.ugra-deactivatedaccount)]

Same for me with Hungarian language.

I can not even change the language in KDE after installation. Selecting another language in System Settings > Regional & Language > Country/Region & Language only changes language on that page (Country/Region & Language). Everything else in KDE remains English. "Select System Language" does not help either. After entering sudo password nothing happens.

Outside KDE everything is localized as expected.

[Ryan Kavanagh (ryanakca)]

Changing status as recommended in #kubuntu-devel with the rationale being that users will find it a major turnoff if they install Kubuntu in their native language, but when they boot up, the login screen and KDE are in English instead of <native language>.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I think the problem here is that KDE4 appears not to honour /etc/default/locale (which is correctly set as you can observe from the fact that terminals get the correct locale). This is surely a KDE bug not a ubiquity bug. Do Kubuntu folks agree?

[Jonathan Riddell (jr)]

Applications are not translated because rosetta has not imported KDE 4 translations yet. I don't know why this is but it is critical that it happens as soon as possible.

[Данило Шеган (danilo)]

Please see bug #274739 and bug #273489 for details about the problems that caused KDE translations not to be imported earlier. Atm, we are importing them and they should be in in a few days, and then updated language packs will be released.

This is atm marked as affecting 'ubiquity', so I didn't mark it as duplicate of #274739 (and also, 'Fix Released' status would probably not match the perception from the Ubuntu side), but in general, LP problems (well, KDE packaging changes we didn't know about, and with KDE being a special case, this is important) that caused this are resolved.

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen (jtv)]

Jonathan: are you saying that the absent translations triggered KDE to ignore the en_CA locale setting? Or are these two separate problems—translations not being imported and KDE ignoring the locale?

By the way, I don't see any Canadian-English KDE translations in the queue, and no imported Canadian-English translations. If the imports failed for whatever reason, they'd still be in the queue, so it looks like Launchpad Translations never received these translations in the first place.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

This has nothing to do with Launchpad Translations. KDE is incorrectly ignoring /etc/default/locale and not even trying to use translations.

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen (jtv)]

Closing the Launchpad Translations side of this, since it turns out to be a KDE issue.

(Don't be put off by the message about the bug being marked as "Invalid"; that's only as a Rosetta bug, not the bug as a whole).

[Jonathan Riddell (jr)]

Colin: what are you doing to test this that makes you think it ignores /etc/default/locale?

If I do a local build and install of kde-l10n-fr and start KDE as a new user which /etc/default/locale is set to French it starts in French with french locale settings (e.g. comma for decimal separator).

I can also select French from System Settings from my existing account and all new applications start in French.

The problem as I see it is that language-pack-kde-fr-base does not contain translations from intrepid, which means essentially no KDE translations since we have switched to KDE 4 in intrepid.

KDE won't be able to use en_CA because there is no entry.desktop file, I think our scripts don't add this file if it isn't already upstream, this is bug 281779.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I tested an en_CA install and observed that KDE was set to "Generic English" in System Settings, which made me believe that there was a problem beyond just translations. If it's working for other locales, then this is probably just a duplicate of bug 281779.

[Rudd-O (rudd-o)]

In my system /etc/default/locale is being *honored*, I have the appropriate lang packs installed, the system settings says Espanol (Ecuador), and a LOT of applications have incomplete translations, including the K Menu.