<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <title>Choosing your Language</title> <meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.73.2"> <link rel="start" href="index.html" title="Mandriva Linux Installation Guide"> <link rel="up" href="index.html" title="Mandriva Linux Installation Guide"> <link rel="prev" href="index.html" title="Mandriva Linux Installation Guide"> <link rel="next" href="acceptLicense.html" title="License Terms of the Distribution"><style xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" type="text/css"> <!-- body { font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px } table { font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px } --></style></head> <body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"> <div class="section" lang="en"> <div class="titlepage"> <div> <div> <h2 class="title"><a name="selectLanguage"></a>Choosing your Language </h2> </div> </div> </div> <p><a name="BId-selectLanguage-pa1"></a>The first step is to choose your preferred language. If you have already changed the language at the <acronym class="acronym">CD</acronym> or <acronym class="acronym">DVD</acronym> boot splash screen and don't need to install additional languages, you can safely move to the next step. </p> <p><a name="BId-selectLanguage-pa2"></a><a class="indexterm" name="BId-selectLanguage-it1"></a>Open the tree representing the continent you are located in, then choose your language. Your language choice will affect the installer, the documentation, and the system in general. </p> <p> <b>Multi-Language System. </b> Use the list accessible through <span class="guilabel">Multi languages</span> to select other languages to be installed on your system, thereby installing the language-specific files for system documentation and applications (translations, fonts, spell checkers, etc.) For example, if Spanish friends are to use your machine, select English as the default language in the tree view and <span class="guilabel">Español</span> in the list view. You may choose several, or even install them all by selecting the <span class="guilabel">All languages</span> option. Make sure you select all languages which are likely to be useful on the machine now, once the system is installed it may be difficult to configure support for languages not chosen at install time. </p> <div class="note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;"> <table border="0" summary="Note: UTF-8
 (Unicode) Support"> <tr> <td rowspan="2" align="center" valign="top" width="25"><img alt="[Note]" src="images/note.png"></td> <th align="left"><acronym class="acronym">UTF-8</acronym> (Unicode) Support </th> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <p><a name="BId-selectLanguage-pa5"></a>Unicode is a character encoding intended to cover all existing languages and alphabets, and <span class="application">Mandriva Linux</span> uses it by default. However, if you have previously noticed problems with it for your language, you can resort to your language-specific encoding by selecting the <span class="guilabel">Old compatibility (non UTF-8) encoding</span> option. </p> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <div class="tip" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;"> <table border="0" summary="Tip: Switching from one
 Language to Another"> <tr> <td rowspan="2" align="center" valign="top" width="25"><img alt="[Tip]" src="images/tip.png"></td> <th align="left">Switching from one Language to Another </th> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <p><a name="pa18a"></a>To switch between the various languages installed on your system once it is installed, go to the main menu and open the <span class="guimenu">Tools</span> → <span class="guimenuitem">Regional Settings</span> entry. To change the language used by the entire system, use the Control Center. </p> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </div> </body> </html>