Hi,
I have a fresh installation of Debian 13 with XFCE and LightDM as display manager (the default).
I used a USB flash drive with a "netinst" image and followed the graphical expert installation, so I explicitly set my locale and the keyboard as needed.
I installed Debian 13 on a old MacBook Pro with an Italian keyboard layout setting the language, date format etc. to UK English for user1.
Everything is working fine for user1, language is English and the Italian keyboard is working great.
I then created a second user2 and I'd like to set the language to Italian, only for user2.
The current locale configurations are the following:
I tried to read various articles online, Debian wikis (Locale and Change language), various posts on this forum (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and even resorted to ask to ChatGPT (paying attention to what was suggesting as "true and verified" solutions before changing my system) with no help.
Most of the people are having problem with locale with their system with a single user (not counting root) or are struggling with a combination of different language and keyboard layout.
These are not my cases: I have 2 users and the keyboard is working fine, I just want to setup a different language for user2 only.
I thought this would be a simple task, even something that could be done via GUI.
Many posts hinted to a "Language Support" in XFCE "Settings" or "Settings Manager". I do not have such menu and from what I learned it's something only present in other Linux distribution (Mint and Ubuntu).
I tried several attempts I found online, one at the time and each time I logged out from user2 XFCE interface and logged in again. I even tried to reboot the system once (I didn't expected to work but I was running of ideas).
Most of the solutions I found suggested to create a text file with the following content:
I also tried to write the same content in
From the root user I also tried to add "Language=it_IT.UTF-8" at the end of user2 dedicated file:
But, again, it didn't solved the issue.
From what I read, in the past - using GDM display manager - was possible to create/edit the file
I know I can run
Can somebody help me? I hope I explained the situation and the setup clearly enough. If you need further information please ask.
Thank you in advance,
Manuel
I have a fresh installation of Debian 13 with XFCE and LightDM as display manager (the default).
I used a USB flash drive with a "netinst" image and followed the graphical expert installation, so I explicitly set my locale and the keyboard as needed.
I installed Debian 13 on a old MacBook Pro with an Italian keyboard layout setting the language, date format etc. to UK English for user1.
Everything is working fine for user1, language is English and the Italian keyboard is working great.
I then created a second user2 and I'd like to set the language to Italian, only for user2.
The current locale configurations are the following:
Code:
user1@MacBookPro:~$ localeLANG=en_GB.UTF-8LANGUAGE=en_GB:enLC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_PAPER="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_NAME="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_ADDRESS="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_TELEPHONE="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_MEASUREMENT="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_GB.UTF-8"user2@MacBookPro:~$ localeLANG=en_GB.UTF-8LANGUAGE=en_GB:enLC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_PAPER="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_NAME="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_ADDRESS="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_TELEPHONE="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_MEASUREMENT="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_ALL=user2@MacBookPro:~$ locale -aCC.utf8en_GB.utf8it_IT.utf8POSIXroot@MacBookPro:~# localeLANG=en_GB.UTF-8LANGUAGE=en_GB:enLC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_PAPER="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_NAME="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_ADDRESS="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_TELEPHONE="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_MEASUREMENT="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_GB.UTF-8"LC_ALL=Most of the people are having problem with locale with their system with a single user (not counting root) or are struggling with a combination of different language and keyboard layout.
These are not my cases: I have 2 users and the keyboard is working fine, I just want to setup a different language for user2 only.
I thought this would be a simple task, even something that could be done via GUI.
Many posts hinted to a "Language Support" in XFCE "Settings" or "Settings Manager". I do not have such menu and from what I learned it's something only present in other Linux distribution (Mint and Ubuntu).
I tried several attempts I found online, one at the time and each time I logged out from user2 XFCE interface and logged in again. I even tried to reboot the system once (I didn't expected to work but I was running of ideas).
Most of the solutions I found suggested to create a text file with the following content:
Code:
user2@MacBookPro:~$ cat .config/locale.conf LANG=it_IT.UTF-8LC_MESSAGES=it_IT.UTF-8.pam_environment and .xsessionrc - both in user2's home - unsuccessfully.From the root user I also tried to add "Language=it_IT.UTF-8" at the end of user2 dedicated file:
Code:
root@MacBookPro:/var/lib/AccountsService/users# cat user1 [org.freedesktop.DisplayManager.AccountsService]BackgroundFile='/usr/share/backgrounds/xfce/xfce-x.svg'[User]Session=XSession=lightdm-xsessionIcon=/home/user1/.faceSystemAccount=falseroot@MacBookPro:/var/lib/AccountsService/users# cat user2 [org.freedesktop.DisplayManager.AccountsService]BackgroundFile=''[User]Session=XSession=lightdm-xsessionIcon=/home/user2/.faceSystemAccount=falseLanguage=it_IT.UTF-8From what I read, in the past - using GDM display manager - was possible to create/edit the file
.dmrc in /home/user2/ but that file seems ignored by recent Debian versions.I know I can run
dpkg-reconfigure locales from root and reconfigure the whole system to Italian, but it is something I'd like to avoid.Can somebody help me? I hope I explained the situation and the setup clearly enough. If you need further information please ask.
Thank you in advance,
Manuel
Statistics: Posted by manuelmagic — 2025-12-30 10:33