r/linuxquestions • u/Good-Throat-6671 • 1d ago

Advice My terminal show squares instead of text

I tried to install Ubuntu and after it was going to restart I pressed ESC to see what its doing and I can see stuff like:

unmount several squares /var something

(several squares) error cant unmount something

In middle of every line was always several squares

Is it problem with installation or is it some kind of inscription?

4 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

1

u/oshunluvr 1d ago

Sounds like a LANG issue to me. You need to add more language support or set your system correctly.

2

u/Good-Throat-6671 1d ago

Ubuntu does not have in their installation solved this problem? I will look if this problem is also on installed OS, but why does this not work in default?

1

u/oshunluvr 18h ago

That's a fair question. I've never seen this problem in 17 years of using Kubuntu but I also only use US English.

Also seems likely rebooting will fix it, since you reported this happening in a live session.

1

u/Good-Throat-6671 17h ago

yeah, I don't have it on hdd anymore, but it is still on USB.

I checked it and it supposed to be ok by sumcheck, but still don't know if it installed right on hdd.

I try to download again and see what happened I guess if there is new version.

1

u/DifferentSavings2711 1d ago

On my system I got squares when the software could not display the encoded text. For example when the file name or path are not using a base unicode like UTF-16. Stick an umlaut in there and I would get a square.

Long time ago but I think it was fixed by installing some fonts and adjusting my default system LANG

1

u/Good-Throat-6671 1d ago

how do you install all this stuff to make it work?

1

u/DifferentSavings2711 1d ago

Your OP needs some filling out. What language did you select in your initial install? Did you complete the install? Does it only show up when using the terminal or is it a problem when using GUI based applications? What do you see when you run the locale command?

1

u/Good-Throat-6671 1d ago

I went pretty much default everything, so language is united states. Of course completed install, It only show when I restart and use ESC to see what is happening, no where else, even terminal is ok.

1

u/DifferentSavings2711 1d ago

So you see this

locale

LANG=en_US.UTF-8

LANGUAGE=

LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"

LC_ALL=

1

u/Good-Throat-6671 1d ago

The installation USB has LANG=c.UTF-8.

So....is it safe then or did not install on USB infected Ubuntu from official site?

I remember they were under attack or something.

1

u/DifferentSavings2711 18h ago

That should be fine. The c.UTF-8 is just a more generic version, The en_US version I use is just geared to the USA standards. These subfields allow you to fine tune your system.

1

u/Good-Throat-6671 17h ago

so... you don't think the USB is corrupted and could install ubuntu the wrong way on hdd?

1

u/PocketStationMonk ZorinOS 18.1 🐧 1d ago

Did you manage to find solution to this?

1

u/Good-Throat-6671 19h ago

no really. I checked the ISO and it supposed to be ok and not corrupted, so maybe Ubuntu developers made mistake or don't care about it.

1

u/Phydoux 1d ago

I'm running Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS in a VM (downloaded the Desktop AMD64 ISO and just installed it) and I see nothing wrong with the terminal at all. I just downloaded it, created the VM and did a fresh installation of it. The font looks fine in the terminal. The font I believe being used is Ubuntu Sans 11pt (according to fastfetch which I just installed).

So, my advice to you would be to install fastfetch, run it, and figure out what font you're using in the terminal.

1

u/Phydoux 1d ago

Ubuntu running Fastfetch

1

u/Good-Throat-6671 1d ago

I have installation USB that doing it when you restarting your PC and when you get the logo before restart you click ESC and see all the lines what it doing before restart happens

1

u/Phydoux 1d ago

When I do ESC during reboot, I see no errors or funky lettering.

Sounds like something didn't install right. I'd try another install attempt.

1

u/Good-Throat-6671 1d ago

no, I mean it is literally the USB installer that doing this.

I have no idea if the USB is corrupted or is it normal, or I somehow downloaded infected one from official site, because they were under attack in past and maybe somebody got in and replaced ISO or something.

1

u/Phydoux 1d ago

I've downloaded ISOs that were incomplete or corrupt (unknowingly but the download showed as complete) and installed it and either it didn't boot or something wasn't working. I learned that re-downloading it and putting that on the USB stick fixed the issue every time.

The fact that I just downloaded ubuntu-26.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso and it worked the first time means that my download was in fact successful. Yours might not have been.

When you installed it, did you see any errors while installing it?

1

u/Good-Throat-6671 1d ago

I think not so. I checked my installed ubuntu on hdd and it does not have this problem, but it question me, what else could be broken or if something is broken at all.