Martin,
On 2010-10-07 11:11, Martin Pitt wrote:
> [gdm] just has a simple locale selector ... the main point is that
> you can start a desktop session in a different language.
That's crystal clear to me. And as long as language-selector didn't
distinguish between language and other locale aspects, the natural way
to serve that purpose was to let GDM set $LANG. There was no reason to
do it otherwise.
As from Lucid (revision 79 in language-selector, I think) language-
selector works differently, and currently it does not play well with
GDM. Making GDM and language-selector work well together in this
respect, i.e. preventing unexpected behavior and user confusion, is the
focus I have. Please note that I suggest changes to both language-
selector and GDM.
Keeping the limited purpose of GDM's locale selector in mind, i.e.
allowing users to start a session in a different language, I believe
that _now_ the best way to serve that purpose is to update $LANGUAGE and
set $LC_MESSAGES, while leaving $LANG to language-selector. In short:
Keep the purpose, change the method.
So, why do I persist, and claim that my method is better? As far as I
can tell, the patches I wrote make language-selector and GDM work
seamlessly together, without any cause left for users to get confused.
At the same time I can't see how going the other way, and just unset
$LANGUAGE, would be sufficient to prevent undesired user surprises.
In an attempt to make my point I added this code to Xsession:
if [ $( echo $GDM_LANG | sed 's/\..*//' ) != \
$( echo $LANGUAGE | sed 's/:.*//' ) ]; then
unset LANGUAGE
fi
Then I made sure that everything was set to Swedish to start with. Now,
please consider this scenario:
* I decide to switch the language (and nothing else) to en_US, and do so
from GDM.
* While now seeing English in menus and messages, I also see those
ambigous American date formats etc., which I don't want.
* Without actually understanding what happened, I go to Language Support
and open the tab for non-language locale settings. To my surprise, it
appears as if Swedish is still selected. Weird! Maybe a temporary
glitch...?
* I restart the computer. No change.
* This time, when in the Language Support tab for non-language locale
settings, I change (from Swedish) to something else, and then back to
Swedish. (I happen to know by now that that makes a difference, but does
the average user know? Probably not.)
* Restart.
* Now Swedish is the pre-selected _language_ in GDM. Seems like we are
back at square one. :(
This is certainly not what I want, and I'm sure that you do not want it
like that either.
So, what else can I say? Suppose most that can be said have been said by
now, so I simply beg you to reconsider and give my patches a chance. If
I'm proved wrong, by you or somebody else, I promise that I'll shut my
mouth. But only then. ;-)
--
Set $LANGUAGE if the user picks a different locale in gdm, so that
language-selector and gdm stop disagreeing
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/553162
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