Debian: Console Russification

Russification takes place in three key stages: configuring locales, if necessary — checking and installing console fonts and encoding, and then configuring the Russian keyboard layout.

Installing and Configuring the Russian Locale.

The locale defines the system message language, date, time, and number formats. The main step is to generate the Russian locale:
1. Install or update the locales package:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install locales

2. Configure the locale using the dpkg-reconfigure utility:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

In the opened text menu, use the spacebar to select the item ru_RU.UTF-8 and press "Enter". On the next screen, choose ru_RU.UTF-8 as the default system locale and press "Enter" again.

Configuring Console Encoding and Font.

The next step is to configure the local console to use UTF-8 and the correct font.
1. Install the console setup package:
sudo apt install console-setup

2. Configure the console font and encoding:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

In the menu that appears, select sequentially:
Encoding: UTF-8;
Font: For Cyrillic support, Terminus or Fixed are good choices, select one of them;
Font size: You can leave it as 8x16 (a readable option);
Character set for the console: Be sure to choose an option that includes Cyrillic (for example, Combined - Latin; Slavic and non-Slavic Cyrillic).

The settings should apply automatically. If not, reboot the machine or switch between virtual consoles and back.

Configuring the Russian Keyboard Layout.

After configuring the locale, messages may become Russian, but to input Cyrillic text in the console, you will also need to configure the keyboard.
1. Install the configuration package:
sudo apt install keyboard-configuration

2. Configure the layout:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

In the menu that appears, sequentially select the appropriate keyboard model (can be left as default), layout (Russian), layout variant, and the key for switching languages (for example, Alt+Shift).

Additionally: To find out the current keyboard model, execute:
grep XKBMODEL /etc/default/keyboard

Additional Steps and Diagnostics:

After all configurations, reboot the system or at least log out of the console and log back in.
To check the results, run the command "locale". If everything is configured correctly, the LANG line and most others will show ru_RU.UTF-8.