I've noticed a couple of problems that I think might be related to a locale problem for my installation. I would appreciate some insight into the gliche.

First, when I try to start OpenOffice Calc I get the following error message:

The application cannot be started. The user interface language cannot be determined.

However, Calc opens and runs just fine IF I run it as root.

Secondly, while experimenting with a complicated multi-window conky I have a similar problem. One of the conky windows is a weather window. When I use a script to startup the multiple conkys in my icewm startup, I get an error message in the conky weather window stating the locale is not set. If I run the conky startup script from root everything works correctly.

I'm not very knowledgeable about locales. How can I fix this problem?

Firstly check as user in a terminal the output of locale

You may need to then
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Then type oocalc in a terminal and see if it opens ok.

If, ok, close terminal and open oocalc again. If it doesn't work then check
/etc/profile has this line
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
and ~/.bashrc
export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

You may need to logout.

Also you may need to reconfigure locales again

I've already tried a dpkg-reconfigure locales with no luck. Did my scheduled smxi update today as well with no luck.

Output of locale as user shows:

LANG=
LC_CTYPE="POSIX"
LC_NUMERIC="POSIX"
LC_TIME="POSIX"
LC_COLLATE="POSIX"
LC_MONETARY="POSIX"
LC_MESSAGES="POSIX"
LC_PAPER="POSIX"
LC_NAME="POSIX"
LC_ADDRESS="POSIX"
LC_TELEPHONE="POSIX"
LC_MEASUREMENT="POSIX"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="POSIX"
LC_ALL=

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8.....then tried to open oocalc....same problem.

Checked /etc/profile and ~/.bashrc and neither have

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Can I add those lines anywhere in profile and .bashrc?

add the lines and it should be ok

Ok...that solved the problem with the conky startup but OOCalc still has the same problem. I will try to re-install calc and see if that solves it.

Thanks for the help Anti.

Re-installing Calc did not help. I will do some googling to try and see if it's an OO problem. I'm using Sid (& sidux kernel) but I've had the problem quite awhile and through several smxi upgrades. I'm just getting tired of going to root to use Calc and Writer...time to fix it.

I have full Open Office installed in two boxes (a desktop and a laptop), and I don't get the msg you are getting, so I don't think it's an OO problem (BTW, I've run 2.3 and 3.0 without any problems). I'm running MEPIS kernels in both machines with Debian stable and I haven't changed my locale at all from installation.

I hope it works out for you.

Pedro