Re: [gentoo-user] Unwelcomed non-native language support

[Gevisz <gevisz@gmail.com>]

On Fri, 29 May 2015 00:41:08 +0200 Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Am 28.05.2015 um 17:35 schrieb gevisz:
> > In my everyday work at the computer, I read
> > and type at three or even four different languages.
> >
> > However, I do want to have all program menues
> > and system messages only in English.
> >
> > So, when I found out that it can be achieved by
> > setting -nls USE flag at my make.conf file, I did
> > it, recompiled the system and for a few weeks
> > enjoyed the full control of my Gentoo system.
> >
> > (As far as I can remember the gettext package
> > was successfully depcleaned from my Gentoo
> > system just after that.)
> >
> > However, after those few weeks (and some system
> > updates), I have noticed that my system started
> > to translate some "system" messages into one of
> > the languages I use but which is not my native language.
> >
> > Moreover, running
> > $ equery depends gettext
> > I get about two fullscreens of packages that supposedly
> > depend on gettext. Nevertheless, in all of them the -nls
> > USE flag is either unset or absent.
> >
> > I have tried to depclean the gettext package from my
> > system once again but portage just ignored my
> > $ emerge --depclean gettext
> > command.
> >
> > I think that it is some kind of a bug in the portage tree:
> > when I set -nls USE flag globally, I do expect that the "system"
> > messages will appear in English only and will not be translated
> > in any other language, but the system understands that as
> > I would have asked for a "non-native" language support.
> >
> > Of course, this is not my main problem in this life, but every
> > time I get the "system" messages translated into my non-native
> > language, I feel as I get a reminder that I do not have a full
> > control of my Gentoo system.
> >
> > So, my questions are:
> > 1.  Is it a bug?
> > 2. How can I get rid of those unwelcomed translations in the right way.
> >
> 
> 1. If a package hard depends on gettext, you can fiddle around with
> useflags as much as you want, it won't change. Not a bug. Just the way
> it is.

If a package hard depend on gettext, it is a bug, IMHO.
 
> 2. Environment variables. Set them. LANG, LANGUAGE and of course LC_ALL

$ echo $LANG
en_US.UTF-8
$ echo $LANGUAGE
                          %%% This environment variable is not set
$ echo $LC_ALL
                          %%% This environment variable is not set
 
Why the system suddenly decided that my native language is one of
the easten-europien ones, then?

And a month or two ago, all the system messages was in English
with exactly the same evironment variables setting. (And packages
did not hard-depend on gettext.) Strange.