Setting the first day of the week in the calendar in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

A short google search brings up
http://www.beginninglinux.com/home/gnome/change-first-day-of-week-to-monday-on-ubuntu-gnome-calendar
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6798112#post6798112
and thousands of other solutions.

I had a look at the first link the article but its of no help as its for Ubuntu GNOME as I am using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and the second article is about the same.

I would rather not use Google at this time and rather the official help channels as Canonical knows best. :)

Both solutions should work on any version of Ubuntu.

I tried the command '$ locale' like the first article says to do and I got this (quoted):

'$: command not found'

In the documentation that I gave the '$' sign denotes the command prompt, that you also will see on your screen (probably in a form "username@computername:~$ "
You should only enter the real command which is

locale

etc.

The command 'locale' gave me this (quoted):

"LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_AU:en
LC_CTYPE="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_ALL="

The command 'etc.' gave me this (quoted):

"No command 'etc.' found, did you mean:
 Command 'etcd' from package 'etcd' (universe)
etc.: command not found"

"etc." was not meant as a command to be executed, but should serve as abbreviation for "and do similar action with the rest of the commands as listed in the linked files".

I assume that the rule in en_AU.UTF-8 is to have Sunday as first day of the week.

If you want to have Monday, you either have to set LC_TIME to a locale that has the desired setting (probably en_GB.UTF-8 will do this), or you can reconfigure en_AU.UTF-8 by modifying the /usr/share/i18n/locales/en_AU file and then recreating the locale database.

Links to pages with a description have already been given in previous comments.

I had a look at the first link you gave me again but it only says to enter in a command once, which is the 'locale' command. I see the word 'sudo' is used twice after. I know this word because I once used it in Terminal, but it doesn't say to run it as a command so does it have another function in Ubuntu? I just to want to clarify so I don't screw anything up. :)

read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo for the background of the sudo command (temporarily gain administrative authorizations)

Yeah I know what sudo is, but I don't know which are the commands. The instructions fail to specify.

Sorry, I do not understand which instructions you deem unclear.

That's just it... there isn't any instructions.

The first instruction tells me what to do and how.

The rest tell me what needs to be done doesn't tell me how to do it, so this blog is useless.

I need instructions that are written consistently and in-line with implementation and that explain how to do what needs to be done. This attempt at that fails.

I am finding that since trying out this operating system I am finding there is almost no instructions on how to use it, information is inconsistent accross the spectrum and instructions are written poorly. Its not wonder this operating system isn't used by most people. Its really frustrating, it could be so much better.

As usual there are several ways to achieve a certain target. In fact there are two different possibilities for changing the first day of the week with Australian English as base setting:

1. You can modify the global definition of the en_AU locale that you are using. This might, however, be overwritten whenever an update of the related locale package is done.

2. You can leave the global definitions of the language settings the way they are, and just define that all settings are taken from the Australian English definition, except the TIME settings which you should take from British English, because that contains the definition that Monday is the first day of the week.

Based on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6798112#post6798112 :

What is the output of the command
cat /etc/default/locale

If it is just something like
LANG="en_AU.UTF-8"
then you should modify this file the following way to add that the time settings are taken from British standards:

Issue the command (in a terminal window)
sudo gedit /etc/default/locale
and in the editor window that opens (after the confirmation dialogue requesting your password) add the following line:
LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"
below the line that is already there.
Save the file and close the editor, and then logoff and logon again and check the Gnome calendar.

The output of the command 'cat /etc/default/locale' gave me this (quoted):

'# File generated by update-locale
LANG="en_AU.UTF-8"
LANGUAGE="en_AU:en"'

Thanks I did what you said and it changed the start of the week to Monday. :D very happy