Help with languages

cascadeoftears · February 16, 2026, 4:22am

Guys, i have a problem with i3wm. My xterm if white and as far as i understood it tries to render russian lang but doesnt have it.

How can i fix this? What is the easiest way to add eng and ru languages? Can u recommend me some sources to get involved into i3wm, endeavor as a total newbie?

joekamprad · February 16, 2026, 2:21pm

welcome to the purple cruise

As i3WM is not a full Desktop (Window Manager) most things will get handled systemwide over default tools.

Also default Terminal on EndeavourOS i3WM is xfce4-terminal and it should follow what you set on the installer for keymap and language. But indeed in cases it can be wrong to as of installer not always 100% correctly detects it automatically, and you may not correct that on the installer slide for keyboard and language settings.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Locale

run locale in a terminal will show what is set currently.
localectl shows keymap too..

eso · February 16, 2026, 3:56pm

@cascadeoftears ,
cat .Xresources

!# File : .Xresources
Xcursor.theme: Qogir-dark
Xcursor.size: 20

xterm*faceName: Monospace
xterm*faceSize: 16
xterm*faceSize1: 8
xterm*faceSize2: 10
xterm*faceSize3: 12
xterm*faceSize4: 14
xterm*faceSize5: 16
xterm*faceSize6: 18

XTerm*background: #2d2d2d
XTerm*foreground: white
XTerm*pointerColor: red
XTerm*pointerColorBackground: black
XTerm*cursorColor: green
XTerm*internalBorder: 3
XTerm*loginShell: true
XTerm*scrollBar: false
XTerm*scrollKey: true
XTerm*saveLines: 1000
XTerm*multiClickTime: 250

xrdb load .Xresources
or reboot

Insert / uncomment a line like this in ~/.config/i3/config
exec --no-startup-id "setxkbmap -layout us,ru -option 'grp:alt_shift_toggle'"

joekamprad · February 16, 2026, 5:49pm

github.com/endeavouros-team/endeavouros-i3wm-setup

etc/skel/.config/i3/config

b7dd0117b


      
          #exec --no-startup-id dex -a -s /etc/xdg/autostart/:~/.config/autostart/
          exec --no-startup-id dex --autostart --environment i3
          
          # start welcome app
          #exec --no-startup-id sh /usr/share/endeavouros/scripts/welcome --startdelay=3
          
          # num lock activated
          #exec --no-startup-id numlockx on
          
          # configure multiple keyboard layouts and hotkey to switch (Alt+CAPSLOCK in this example)
          #exec --no-startup-id setxkbmap -layout 'us,sk' -variant altgr-intl,qwerty -option 'grp:alt_caps_toggle'
          
          # start conky:
          #exec_always --no-startup-id conky
          
          # start a script to setup displays
          # uncomment the next line, use arandr to setup displays and save the file as monitor:
          exec --no-startup-id ~/.screenlayout/monitor.sh
          
          # set wallpaper
          # exec --no-startup-id sleep 2 && nitrogen --restore

we have this in the confog too

eso · February 16, 2026, 6:21pm

Mea culpa. I searched but forgot the pattern. And was busy moderating myself to ask where OP lives.

joekamprad · February 16, 2026, 6:54pm

no regrets .. good that you pointed to this.