Hosting Provided By

Serious issue with cdebconf translation filtering (was: Tasksel only partly localized?)

From: Frans Pop <elendil(at)planet.nl>
Date: Sun Dec 23 2007 - 21:12:55 EST

On Sunday 23 December 2007, Christian Perrier wrote:
> While running a default install with one of the dailies, I found out
> that tasksel was promptig me in English while the installation was
> running in French.
>
> Of course, tasksel's translation is complete for French, even for the
> uploaded version.
>
> Indeed, the *tasks names* were translated while the main screen ("At
> the moment, only the core of the system...") wasn't.

This is caused by the fact that the debconf-copydb call in pkgsel's postinst (to copy the d-i templates we want available in the target system) clobbers the templates.dat file in the target system.

AFAICT this is because of the post-Etch change to "filter out" translations other than the currently selected one.

This conclusion was reached as follows:
- I see the same issue for Dutch
- if I check templates.dat in target after pkgsel, it contains no   translations for tasksel
- I've verified that the translations _are_ present after tasksel is   installed during base-installer
- if the debconf-copydb call in the pkgsel postinst is commented out, the   translated text is displayed correctly - with the debconf-copydb call, the templates.dat file in /target shrinks   from 518kB to 45kB

[... more testing ...]

The reason the selected language is filtered out as well is that we set LANG=C in pkgsel's postinst.

The issue can be worked around by adding a 'unset DEBCONF_DROP_TRANSLATIONS' in the pkgsel postinst, but I don't feel that would be the correct solution as IMO by default the filtering should just not have *any* effect on other debconf databases than the D-I one. Having to remember to unset such a dangerous option is not a good design.

A possible solution could be to NOT have DEBCONF_DROP_TRANSLATIONS=1 for the whole D-I environment but to only set it in places where we actually want the filtering to happen.

Do you need help?

CCing Colin to get his input on this as he implemented the feature.

Cheers,
FJP

-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org


application/pgp-signature attachment: This is a digitally signed message part.

Received on Sun Dec 23 21:13:23 2007

This message: [ Message body ]
Next message: music(at)ridethekiac.com: "about your music, please read.."
Previous message: Frans Pop: "Re: How to preconfigure debconf values?"
In reply to: Christian Perrier: "Tasksel only partly localized?"
Next in thread: Colin Watson: "Re: Serious issue with cdebconf translation filtering (was: Tasksel only partly localized?)"
Reply: Colin Watson: "Re: Serious issue with cdebconf translation filtering (was: Tasksel only partly localized?)"

Contemporary messages sorted: [ By Date ] [ By Thread ] [ By Subject ] [ By Author ] [ By messages with attachments ]

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Wed Mar 19 2008 - 03:51:53 EDT