Ubuntu

language support

Asked by ChrisCS

Hi,

I have just installed Ubuntu on my laptop and although my native language is English, I would like to have support for French and Italian.

I have looked at "System/Administration/Language Support" but only English appears to be offered. How can I add support for French and Italian?

I installed Ubuntu by downloading the .iso file and using it to create a live CD

Many thanks in advance for any help you can offer. Incidentally I only installed Ubuntu yesterday, so today is my first real taste of it.

Chris Crofton-Sleigh

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Solved by:
Bhavani Shankar
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Revision history for this message
Bhavani Shankar (bhavi) said : 		#1

Hello

You have to install language packs for support in Italian and french

Type the following command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install language-pack-gnome-fr-base

to install french language pack

and

sudo apt-get install language-pack-it-base

to install italian language pack

and then do

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

(that should install language support)

Regards

Bhavani Shankar

Revision history for this message
marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#2

Go to System/Administration/Language Support select the Italian and French language from the list.

Hope this helps

Revision history for this message
ChrisCS (chriscro) said : 		#3

Hi, thank you both for your messages but, unfortunately, neither of your suggestions worked.

When I tried Bhavani Shankar's suggestion I got the error message "Package language-pack-gnome-fr-base is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source.
E: Package language-pack-gnome-fr-base has no installation candidate"

I had already tried Marcobra's suggestion but didn't get a list - only English was offered.

In case it is relevant, I installed Ubuntu from a download which I put onto a CD and used the CD for a while as a live CD until I decided to do a proper installation onto my hard disc. Perhaps I need to use the CD but I have no idea what commands to use if this is the case.

Thanks again for your suggestions

Revision history for this message
Best Bhavani Shankar (bhavi) said : 		#4

Hello Chris:

Enable extra repositories and try again

Open up software sources (System->Administration->Software sources) and under ubuntu software tab please check all the boxes and click on close

Then after doing this:

Type the following command in a terminal (applications -> accessories -> terminal)

sudo apt-get update

to enable all the repositories...

and have a try again..

Regards

Bhavani Shankar.

Revision history for this message
ChrisCS (chriscro) said : 		#5

Hello Bhavani,

I have followed your instructions and it has all worked; thanks very much for your help.

Having gone to all that trouble, I am slightly disappointed to find that the French spelling checker doesn't seem very good. I did a letter with some purposely bad spelling and it missed quite a lot of them. Also I had to remind Open Office for every word that it was in French. However it is my first attempt at that word processor so I expect that there is a lot to learn on top of learning about Obuntu. I just hope you don't get fed up with my questions!

Best regards

Chris

Revision history for this message
raymond house (raymondh40) said : 		#6

I can't get French in the language support window. I have tried all that Bhavani suggested and still no results. When I download French and click "apply" the language support window grey's out and I can't close it. I have to log out or shut down. I am using Ubuntu 11.10 and Unity. Thank you for any help. Ray