How do I check the character set used by ubuntu and probably change it

Question

As the subject says, I am curious to know what character-set is used by Ubuntu, is it ASCII or something else like utf-8/utf-16 etc. And if possible how can i change the default character set.

Answer 1

Locales customize programs to your language and country. When you installed Ubuntu, you answered some simple questions such as specifying your country and language. Ubuntu used the answers to those questions, in part, to choose a suitable locale for your installation.

The basic functionality is provided by the locale package, which is installed by default. Actual locales are installed separately via the language-pack-* packages.

Most users want a single locale to be used for all aspects of their session. In this case, the GUI provided by System Settings -> Language Support does the right thing.

Below are some of the things that you can do:

• List installed locales
• List current settings
• Changing settings temporarily
• Changing settings permanently
• (Re-)Generating locales¹

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^{1Source:Ubuntu Documentations}