Messing with the /etc/environment file is probably a bad idea as it is
owned by the libpam packages and may contain user settings.
A lot of users are encountering this problem when upgrading from past
versions, in particular when converting to UTF8. Doing nothing at all
seems like a poor idea.
Attached is a patch to at least warn the user about the problem via
the locales postinst script.
--- glibc-2.7.orig/debian/debhelper.in/locales.postinst 2009-03-19 14:20:41.000000000 -0400
+++ glibc-2.7/debian/debhelper.in/locales.postinst 2009-03-19 15:26:32.000000000 -0400
@@ -76,6 +76,16 @@
fi
fi
+# Make some noise if locale information is in /etc/environment (bug 500164)
+# File is owned by libpam, not locales, and may contain user settings
+if [ -s /etc/environment ] ; then
+ if grep -e LANG -e LC_ -c /etc/environment; then
+ echo "*** /etc/environment may contain outdated locale settings ***"
+ echo "*** removal or modification of any existing LANG, LC_*, or ***"
+ echo "*** LANGUAGE parameters may be needed ***"
+ fi
+fi
+
#DEBHELPER#
exit 0
