File: gettext.info,  Node: Setting the GUI Locale,  Next: Setting the POSIX Locale,  Prev: System Installation,  Up: Users

2.2 Setting the Locale Used by GUI Programs
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   The immediately available programs in a user's desktop come from a
group of programs called a "desktop environment"; it usually includes
the window manager, a web browser, a text editor, and more.  The most
common free desktop environments are KDE, GNOME, and Xfce.

   The locale used by GUI programs of the desktop environment can be
specified in a configuration screen called "control center", "language
settings" or "country settings".

   Individual GUI programs that are not part of the desktop environment
can have their locale specified either in a settings panel, or through
environment variables.

   For some programs, it is possible to specify the locale through
environment variables, possibly even to a different locale than the
desktop's locale.  This means, instead of starting a program through a
menu or from the file system, you can start it from the command-line,
after having set some environment variables.  The environment variables
can be those specified in the next section (*note Setting the POSIX
Locale::); for some versions of KDE, however, the locale is specified
through a variable ‘KDE_LANG’, rather than ‘LANG’ or ‘LC_ALL’.