When working with Debian Squeeze systems, you might encounter locale-related warnings like:

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory

This typically indicates your system doesn't have the proper locale definitions installed or your environment variables are misconfigured.

First, verify your current locale configuration:

locale
echo $LANG
echo $LC_CTYPE
echo $LC_ALL

The most common solution is to generate the missing locales:

sudo apt-get install locales
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

During the reconfigure process, make sure to select:

• en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
• Other UTF-8 locales you might need

Edit /etc/default/locale or your shell configuration file:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

Then apply changes:

source ~/.bashrc  # or the appropriate file for your shell

For remote connections, check /etc/ssh/sshd_config for:

AcceptEnv LANG LC_*

If you want to prevent locale transmission over SSH, comment out this line.

After making changes, verify with:

locale -a  # Should show en_US.UTF-8
locale  # Should show UTF-8 settings without errors
perl -e 'print "Locale test\n"'  # Shouldn't show warnings

If you still face issues, you can force the C locale:

export LC_ALL=C
export LANG=C

Add these to your ~/.bashrc for persistence.

If /usr/bin/locale is missing, reinstall the libc-bin package:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall libc-bin

---

Those pesky locale warnings in Debian Squeeze are more than just annoying - they can actually impact how some applications function. The core issue manifests when system utilities (especially Perl) can't properly set the locale environment variables.

The error occurs because:

1. The system is trying to use locale settings that aren't properly generated
2. There's a mismatch between configured and available locales
3. Environment variables (LC_CTYPE, LC_ALL) reference non-existent locales

Here's how to properly fix this:

# First, check currently generated locales
locale -a

# Install all necessary locale packages
sudo apt-get install locales

# Generate the required locale (replace en_US with your preferred locale)
sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8

# Update the system configuration
sudo update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8
sudo update-locale LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
sudo update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

For VPS environments, you might want to modify /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

# Comment out or remove this line to prevent locale issues over SSH
# AcceptEnv LANG LC_*

After making changes, verify with:

# Check current locale settings
locale

# Test Perl locale handling
perl -e 'print "Locale test\n";'

Add these to ~/.bashrc or /etc/environment:

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

If issues persist:

# Reconfigure all locales
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

# Check for missing locale packages
sudo apt-get install language-pack-en-base