** Description changed: + <SRU nomination addition> + I'm about to nominate Lucid and Maverick fixes of this bug for stable release updates (SRUs), which is the reason for this addition to the bug description. + + Many (most?) new Ubuntu users, who need more than one locale to set + their preferences for language and various "regional formats" (date + formats etc.), experience that their selections in language-selector + and/or GDM give unexpected results (see below for examples). The number + of duplicates of this easily reproducable bug is not insignificant. + Furthermore, IMO it's reasonable to assume that to people with no + previous experience from a GNU/Linux OS it's difficult to compensate for + the bug by fixing it manually. For those reasons, and even if the bug + doesn't exactly represent a security issue, I think it is such a "high- + impact bug" that we should not want to keep distributing with the latest + LTS respective latest stable release. You can only make one first + impression to those who decide to try Ubuntu. ;-) + + The Natty fixes were uploaded a few weeks ago, and no worrying bugs due to the changes have been reported so far. The branches I now suggest to be uploaded to -proposed were uploaded to my PPA, and the resulting builds have been tested successfully. + https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj/+archive/locale-test + I would say that the risk for regressions is low. + + Messures have been taken with the aim to prevent undesired surprises at first login after update. + https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/2.32.0-0ubuntu3 + </SRU nomination addition> + Binary package hint: gdm This is a follow-up to bug 407300, which has been fixed but a separate issue remains. I'm opening a separate task for language-selector, as it refers to the interaction between it and gdm. The problem is basically that GDM seems to always override the LANG values set by language selector, and quite easily one can get to a situation where LANGUAGE and LANG differ and the desktop is a mixture of two languages. Steps to reproduce (a): * New install, choosing Catalan in the installer * I log in without doing any changes to the language in GDM * I start System > Administration > Language support * I choose English there * I log out * I log back in without doing any changes in the GDM language chooser * My session is half English and half Catalan due to LANGUAGE=en and LANG=ca_ES.utf8 (Firefox in Catalan, gnome-panel in English, gnome-menus in Catalan). Steps to reproduce (b): * Perform a full installation in English, as per http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Install/NonEnglishLanguage#Installation%20Full%20Network%20Support * Go to System > Administration > Language Support * Install the Traditional Chinese language * Bring Traditional Chinese to the top of the list to become the main desktop language * Press the "Apply System-wide..." button * Reboot * When entering the session, you'll notice the desktop half translated in English, half in Chinese. The most noticeable parts shown in English are all the menus and Firefox. These applications seem to ignore the LANGUAGE variable * Running 'locale' on the terminal shows that LANG=en_US.UTF-8 and LANGUAGE=zh_K:en_US:en I understand that this might be a problem in each application, as they should give LANGUAGE preference. Rather than filing a bug in each app right now, would it not make more sense to ensure that at least the first locale in LANGUAGE, the one in LANG and LC_MESSAGES are the same? (assuming it is possible to do such a thing, of course). Also see the related bug 552664
** Description changed: <SRU nomination addition> I'm about to nominate Lucid and Maverick fixes of this bug for stable release updates (SRUs), which is the reason for this addition to the bug description. Many (most?) new Ubuntu users, who need more than one locale to set their preferences for language and various "regional formats" (date formats etc.), experience that their selections in language-selector and/or GDM give unexpected results (see below for examples). The number of duplicates of this easily reproducable bug is not insignificant. Furthermore, IMO it's reasonable to assume that to people with no previous experience from a GNU/Linux OS it's difficult to compensate for the bug by fixing it manually. For those reasons, and even if the bug doesn't exactly represent a security issue, I think it is such a "high- impact bug" that we should not want to keep distributing with the latest LTS respective latest stable release. You can only make one first impression to those who decide to try Ubuntu. ;-) The Natty fixes were uploaded a few weeks ago, and no worrying bugs due to the changes have been reported so far. The branches I now suggest to be uploaded to -proposed were uploaded to my PPA, and the resulting builds have been tested successfully. https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj/+archive/locale-test I would say that the risk for regressions is low. Messures have been taken with the aim to prevent undesired surprises at first login after update. https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/2.32.0-0ubuntu3 + + / Gunnar Hjalmarsson + </SRU nomination addition> Binary package hint: gdm This is a follow-up to bug 407300, which has been fixed but a separate issue remains. I'm opening a separate task for language-selector, as it refers to the interaction between it and gdm. The problem is basically that GDM seems to always override the LANG values set by language selector, and quite easily one can get to a situation where LANGUAGE and LANG differ and the desktop is a mixture of two languages. Steps to reproduce (a): * New install, choosing Catalan in the installer * I log in without doing any changes to the language in GDM * I start System > Administration > Language support * I choose English there * I log out * I log back in without doing any changes in the GDM language chooser * My session is half English and half Catalan due to LANGUAGE=en and LANG=ca_ES.utf8 (Firefox in Catalan, gnome-panel in English, gnome-menus in Catalan). Steps to reproduce (b): * Perform a full installation in English, as per http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Install/NonEnglishLanguage#Installation%20Full%20Network%20Support * Go to System > Administration > Language Support * Install the Traditional Chinese language * Bring Traditional Chinese to the top of the list to become the main desktop language * Press the "Apply System-wide..." button * Reboot * When entering the session, you'll notice the desktop half translated in English, half in Chinese. The most noticeable parts shown in English are all the menus and Firefox. These applications seem to ignore the LANGUAGE variable * Running 'locale' on the terminal shows that LANG=en_US.UTF-8 and LANGUAGE=zh_K:en_US:en I understand that this might be a problem in each application, as they should give LANGUAGE preference. Rather than filing a bug in each app right now, would it not make more sense to ensure that at least the first locale in LANGUAGE, the one in LANG and LC_MESSAGES are the same? (assuming it is possible to do such a thing, of course). Also see the related bug 552664 -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/553162 Title: Set $LANGUAGE if the user picks a different locale in gdm, so that language-selector and gdm stop disagreeing -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
