It's also a bit weird that "localectl" in your case does not report a system locale. [sh @ balrog-tw-dev] ~ 4 % localectl System Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8 VC Keymap: de-nodeadkeys X11 Layout: de X11 Model: microsoftpro X11 Variant: nodeadkeys X11 Options: terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp According to "man localectl", it stores its values in /etc/locale.conf and in /etc/vconsole.conf: [sh @ balrog-tw-dev] ~ 5 % cat /etc/locale.conf LANG=en_US.UTF-8 Maybe this is where that "ru_RU.UTF-8" value is hiding. [sh @ balrog-tw-dev] ~ 6 % cat /etc/vconsole.conf KEYMAP=de-nodeadkeys FONT=eurlatgr.psfu FONT_MAP= FONT_UNIMAP=