On 04/17/2014 09:22 AM, Rodney Dawes wrote: > On Thu, 2014-04-17 at 09:09 -0400, Kyle Nitzsche wrote: >> Just noting that our traditional deb based lang packs approach (for core >> stuff) >> in the context of the monolithic system image enables: >> * producing stock Ubuntu devices with as wide a set of languages as is wanted >> * while also allowing custom phones/tablets to trim that down to the hand >> picked >> languages they want and thereby freeing disk space > While the debs do allow this, it is only convenience to us that they are > debs we are doing it with. There are other ways we could enable this, > without debs, but it requires work. The debs are convenient right now, > but when requirements change and we need to provide translations updates > without upgrading the whole image, they will not be so convenient.
So to be clear, I don't really care if it is debs or not. It's just that debs already work (except for the requirement to add translations/languages at runtime). And we have a fully functioning set of things that enable: * customized images (only include the languages you want) * customized packages (that add features and just those features' translations to a pkg while falling back to the translations provided for the pkg by lang packs). The only thing we do not have now (as previously mentioned in this thread) is adding a language at runtime that it not baked into the system image. Can an overlay file system solve this by allowing language deb installation (by a language selector settings widget like in 'classic' now) into a read-write area that is joined with the read-only area? > >> If we do not have the ability to add translations for core stuff (not >> including >> click pkgs) beyond that baked into the image, then the pressure will be to >> add >> as many languages into the stock image as possible. In my experience, OEMs >> are >> often quite clear that their product does not need all those languages and >> they >> choose to delete them for the disk space. Lang packs enable these options >> without much fuss, it seems to me. > The main issue with the current debs system is that we are shipping a > lot of translations we don't actually need to be on the system, because > our language pack debs are built from the requirements of the full > Ubuntu ISO, and not the phone image. So we are already hitting a > conflict of interest between the two. Yes: Perhaps the lang packs for Ubuntu Desktop would not be the same as for Ubuntu for phones/tablets. >> I look forward to hearing about how/whether we intend to support adding >> translations for core stuff beyond that provided in the system image when it >> is >> built. If we can do that, this part of the discussion is moot. > I would hope we intend to support that. We've been supporting it for 10 > years in Ubuntu. I don't see why we'd stop supporting it just because > some OEMs want to ship images with only a subset of translations. If we > don't support it, it means some people will never be able to use an > Ubuntu phone, without building their own custom images and reflashing a > device. I sure hope that isn't how we intend to continue supporting it. > > -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone Post to : ubuntu-phone@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
