Russian language in Ubuntu 26.04

[otpravitel]

I decided to install Linux for the first time and settled on Ubuntu. I read the manual and watched a lot of YouTube videos, and installing the latest version of Ubuntu was easy. However, translating the system into Russian raises questions. I tried changing the system language in various ways, both through the system settings in the graphical interface and through the command line. The result is in the screenshot.
When the system boots, before entering the password, this menu is in Russian:

And after booting, everything looks like this, half in Russian, half in English

Is this how it’s supposed to be? Or am I doing something wrong? In the videos I watched, all the menus were in Russian.

[rubi1200]

Welcome to Ubuntu Discourse

First off, good choice going with Ubuntu. Your Linux journey has begun.

Start by opening a terminal and post back the output of this command:

locale

When you reply, please highlight the output and then click on the </> icon in the composer to wrap with code tags (preformatted text).

Once we see the results, we can hopefully take it from there.

During installation did you choose Russian for language and keyboard settings?

[otpravitel]

@rubi1200

During installation did you choose Russian for language and keyboard settings?

Yes, I chose Russian everywhere.
The terminal gave this:

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

[graymech]

The assumption is being made that every word in Ubuntu the operating system is translated into every language. That is not true. The situation is worse for the applications that are part of a default Ubuntu installation.

This will reveal the progress or lack of progress for each language.

Progress in translating Ubuntu languages other than English

I do believe that translating Ubuntu is a volunteer community task.

Ubuntu Translators translation group

Regards

[rubi1200]

@otpravitel

Check this please:

If you go to Settings > Region & Language, does it show a “Manage Installed Languages” button with an exclamation mark?

If so, clicking it will often trigger a “Complete Installation” download that fixes these variables automatically.

You may need to restart the computer to see the changes.

[otpravitel]

I don’t see any exclamation marks anywhere.

[rubi1200]

I did a test install in a virtual machine, choosing Russian for language and keyboard.

Thankfully, since I do so many tests I can almost do this with my eyes closed so everything in Russian was not a bother.

When you get to the screen for username and password, you need to change to English since those fields need to use Latin characters rather than Cyrillic. I did this by using the language switcher on the top menu outside the installer screen.

After that, I let the install finish and rebooted.

After login everything is in Russian. Menus, folders, settings, you name it. The two exceptions seemed to be the snap folder under /home and Firefox on the dash but other than that it was all as I would have expected.

So, now the question is why are you not seeing the same thing?

I need to go back and check some things but will hopefully return with some ideas on how to fix this.

Meantime, be patient and wait for input from other users too.

[rubi1200]

At Manage Installed Languages click on that item to enter it.

Are you prompted by any messages?

Final question: did you do the minimal or full install?

[otpravitel]

This is the message that appears, nothing more

I performed a full installation. I think there was some kind of glitch during installation. I returned to the installation menu several times to decide how to manage the disk space. In the end, I completely entrusted the disk to the installer. If there is no simple solution, I will reinstall the system.

[rubi1200]

Under Install/Remove Languages is Russian there and does the checkbox have a mark in it?

If not, it is possible the full packs were not downloaded for some reason.

[ogra]

@otpravitel

This is the message that appears

This message means it is trying to obtain language packages (or info about their availability) from the Ubuntu archive, the archive seems to still be suffering from a DDoS attack so connection attempts might be spotty or fail completely (it started last Friday so if you installed on the weekend the installer might have had a similar problem when trying to get your language packages which would explain the “glitch” you mentioned)

Update concerning DDOS attack on Canonical and Ubuntu

Canonical’s web infrastructure is under a sustained, cross-border attack and we are working to address it. We will provide more information in our official channels as soon as we are able to.

[otpravitel]

The Russian language is available and the box is checked.

Oh, I was just installing the system at that time. This is most likely the source of the problem. I think I’ll just reinstall the system. Thanks everyone for your help.

[rubi1200]

At this point, with no major changes and I assume you have your data backed up, a reinstall is probably the quickest way to deal with it.

If possible, make sure you are on a wired connection for the entire install.

Good luck and please let us know the result.

[otpravitel]

Reinstalling helped. Afterward, everything looked as expected. This means that the first installation really took place at a very unfortunate time due to problems on the servers. Although, on the surface, everything looked fine.