Cannot change login language

I should use the live ubuntu cd to access xorg.conf and then set the correct layout :)

I've booted-up with the live ubuntu cd, and mounted the relevant hard-drive. I then opened up the xorg.conf, but it has nothing in it about Input Device keyboard, or language or layout. So that doesn't appear to be the problem. I'm not sure whether there is another config file somewhere I should be looking to change, or whether I should make an insertion into the xorg.conf

You have to do dome particular passages:

1) Mount all the file system hierarchy in a directory (for example /mnt) and it's subdirectories.
2) sudo chroot /mnt
3) dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

It should solve the issue

Thanks for your help Crimer.

Running the console setup package didn't seem to help. I set things to fairly standard defaults, but when I tried to boot again from the hard-disk, I had exactly the same problems: greek in the login window, and greek/garbled-text in the CLI.

I went back to the xorg.conf, and added the following:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Which seems to have solved the problem. I'm not entirely sure those are the correct values to add, but it's working.

Hello Seumas,

I am having same kind of problem, the default language been change and neither my login nor password is accepted. Am wondering if i could get little more detail how you manage to make the default language to English. I don't really know how to open the console terminal to access xorg.conf file. Also the hard drive is encrypted and i have to enter password before it take me to the welcome screen as well, but i manage to by pass it and get to welcome screen, where i can't go any further coz login nor password is accepted.

I think if you can tell me how to open up the console terminal i should be able to manage from there on. Thanks

Axim,

Sorry to hear you have the same problem, it's a tricky one and I didn't find a lot of help.

Remember, I booted up from an Ubuntu-CD, that was pretty vital. So if you don't have one, go and find one. Just choose 'trying out Ubuntu' or whatever it is, it's pretty obvious on the start-up menu.

Once on to that, mount your hard drive. if it's encrypted, you will have to enter your password, but you should be running in english (or whatever your native language is).

Now, assuming nothing of you (don't be insulted!), you can access the Terminal from Applications->Accessories-> Terminal
The file you want is the xorg.conf, and it's located in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
If you're not sure how to navigate from the console, just do a quick google search for basic linux commands and you'll get some answers.

You have above what I did to fix it, hopefully that will work for you. Let me know how it goes.

Hi Seumas,

I am having the same issue as you described, except with Arabic and English.

I cannot login with my english username because my keyboard is set to Arabic.

I used a live session and added the entry that you added into my xorg.conf file but this made no difference when I restarted my computer, still the keyboard types arabic letters.

Also, I read that the 8.10 version of Ubuntu no longer uses the xorg.conf file in the same way as previous versions.

Do you know of any other configurations files that might control the keyboard layout??

I found another file...
/etc/default/console-setup

When I edited these variables, this time it made a difference and I was able to login.
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="us"

Glad to hear you solved it.