(Alastair, it is probably quite important that you first read this thread in debian-boot. We really might need your involvment)
> The first stage is this: (a) make the Cyrillic languages use > console-setup instead of console-cyrillic and (b) use console-setup > for even more languages (such as Vietnamese and all non-Latin > languages) the same way currently the Cyrillic languages use > console-cyrillic. I will be more than glad to be able to obsolete > console-cyrillic so I don't have to maintain similar functionality in > two packages. Console-setup is already better and more universal than > console-cyrillic and it also seams very easy to maintain. > > This first stage is very simple and it is a pity that it was not > complete for etch. Well, that would have needed a plan, which didn't really happen. The manpower for console handling in D-I is very scarce. > > - how much development would be needed > > For the first stage very little development is needed - we simply use > console-setup instead of console-cyrillic. How? Just replace "apt-install console-cyrillic" by "apt-install console-setup" in localechooser's finish-install script? > > The most important change in d-i before the udebs of console-setup can > be used is that console-setup needs 'loadkeys'. This means that the > console maintainers will have to make an udeb with loadkeys. You mean a udeb from console-tools, named "console-tools-udeb", with only loadkeys? If so, we should file this against console-tools. > The other change is inside localechooser. Console-setup needs > information about the encoding of the selected locale, or else it has > to ask the question about the encoding with critical priority. If > localechooser sets a template such as debian-installer/locale-encoding, > this should be enough. That should maybe be merged with Colin's proposed changes to localechooser. I remember him also talking about getting the encoding for a given locale as not all locales have the encoding in their name. > I think that is all that needs to be done outside console-setup. If > d-i uses console-setup, then all console-related stuff can be (but > doesn't need to be) removed from localechooser. > > The most difficult part inside console-setup is to make the > model/layout strings translatable. The X upstream provides > translations in a xml file but I have no idea how to use them. Here, I feel like we're desperately needing Denis Barbier who had all this knowledge..:-| However, is that needed? If I'm correct, Ubuntu uses a method to recognize the keyboard layout by asking users to type some keys. That could maybe be used to avoid prompting for the keyboard layout. > This is what I can not do: > - to fix the bugs promptly (for example translation-based uploads); I don't get the point here. Do you need help dealing with console-setup l10n and prepare packages?
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