RFE: implant locale information into isos like anaconda implants md5sums

[Till Maas]

Hiyas,

I have an idea to make it easier for people to create an iso image with the 
desired locale and keyboard layout for local distribution.

The anaconda project created a tool "isomd5sum" that somehow implants the 
md5sum of major parts of the iso into the iso file itself. I did not yet find 
the time to investigate how they do it. I would find it very useful, if the 
same technique could be used to store the default locale and keyboard layout 
within the iso image for live cds.

What do you think about this idea?

Regards,
Till

[Jeremy Katz]

On Mon, 2008-10-20 at 22:18 +0200, Till Maas wrote:
> I have an idea to make it easier for people to create an iso image with the 
> desired locale and keyboard layout for local distribution.
>
> The anaconda project created a tool "isomd5sum" that somehow implants the 
> md5sum of major parts of the iso into the iso file itself. I did not yet find 
> the time to investigate how they do it. I would find it very useful, if the 
> same technique could be used to store the default locale and keyboard layout 
> within the iso image for live cds.
>
> What do you think about this idea?

The md5sum embedding is done by putting the information into the
application specific area of the ISO.  The problem is that this is a
(very) limited space and we're already using almost all of it to store
md5sums.

Also, I think (hope? :) that people are using the live images as much or
more off of USB sticks and so I'd rather not make any choices like this
which aren't generally usable no matter what type of medium you're
running the live image from.

Jeremy

[Till Maas]

On Mon October 20 2008, Jeremy Katz wrote:
> The md5sum embedding is done by putting the information into the
> application specific area of the ISO.  The problem is that this is a
> (very) limited space and we're already using almost all of it to store
> md5sums.

:-(
> Also, I think (hope? :) that people are using the live images as much or
> more off of USB sticks and so I'd rather not make any choices like this
> which aren't generally usable no matter what type of medium you're
> running the live image from.

Currently I am more often booting a new iso image in qemu-kvm, than one from a 
USB stick. There it would be nice to simply run some "implant-locale" script 
to the iso, without the need to copy all contents onto a virtual USB device. 
And the information from the iso could also be used by a livecd-iso-to-disk 
script that can set the keyboard layout and locale somehow.

Regards,
Till

[Nicolas Chauvet]

2008/10/20 Till Maas :
> Hiyas,
>
> I have an idea to make it easier for people to create an iso image with the
> desired locale and keyboard layout for local distribution.
>
> The anaconda project created a tool "isomd5sum" that somehow implants the
> md5sum of major parts of the iso into the iso file itself. I did not yet find
> the time to investigate how they do it. I would find it very useful, if the
> same technique could be used to store the default locale and keyboard layout
> within the iso image for live cds.
>
> What do you think about this idea?

Hello !

The "whole" problematic of localized LiveCD isn't only that language,
keyboard, date (but also firefox/thunderbird dictionaries) are thoses
from a given locale option.
But also that translation texts (/usr/share/locale/* ) are also
removed to only keep the desired locale. This will save around 200Mo
from a 700Mo international spin. (tested in the fr_FR LiveCD case).
So maybe it could be possible to store locales in a special place so
it can be removed easily from the international spin when the iso is
getting transferered to the (LiveUSB) device.
But for now i'm still using (from the fedora-livecd-desktop-fr_FR.ks ):
%pre
# Only install the needed locales
mkdir -p /etc/rpm
echo "%_install_langs en:fr:fr_FR:fr-FR" > /etc/rpm/macros.lang

Nicolas (kwizart)

[Jeremy Katz]

On Tue, 2008-10-21 at 00:04 +0200, KH KH wrote:
> The "whole" problematic of localized LiveCD isn't only that language,
> keyboard, date (but also firefox/thunderbird dictionaries) are thoses
> from a given locale option.
> But also that translation texts (/usr/share/locale/* ) are also
> removed to only keep the desired locale.

There aren't any translations removed from the default desktop live
image.  I can't speak to what's done for the other live images
> This will save around 200Mo
> from a 700Mo international spin. (tested in the fr_FR LiveCD case).
> So maybe it could be possible to store locales in a special place so
> it can be removed easily from the international spin when the iso is
> getting transferered to the (LiveUSB) device.

The problems with removing languages from being installed start with
a) No easy way for someone to go back and add a locale after the fact
b) Not having bits installed means that if you're using deltarpms, you
can't really take advantage of deltas
> But for now i'm still using (from the fedora-livecd-desktop-fr_FR.ks ):
> %pre
> # Only install the needed locales
> mkdir -p /etc/rpm
> echo "%_install_langs en:fr:fr_FR:fr-FR" > /etc/rpm/macros.lang

You do realize that %pre doesn't even run at all with livecd-creator?

Jeremy

Hiyas you too,

I love to see away to set the default language set at compose time in the
ks file and anaconda should read the language and focus/highlight it by
default on language selection dialog [in liveinst]

my way of doing this is that I noticed that all initscripts source
/etc/init.d/functions which sources /etc/profile.d/lang.sh which selects
the language from /etc/sysonfig/i18n and other places so I added another
place to that file which is the boot parameters

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=454105

and on our fedora-based Linux (www.Ojuba.org) the boot menu passes
LANG=ar_JO.UTF-8

I consider this to be very useful to implement even if it's not the best
way for example as a fail-safe language setting procedure or as a feature
that will help us when gfxboot is upstreamed so that language menu
implementation would be trivial but even if this is done,

I think the right place for default language to be set is in .ks file and
anaconda should respect it and highlight it by default [not skip the
language selection completely] I tried to ask how todo that in
fedora-buildsys-list
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-buildsys-list/2008-October/msg00000.h...
but everybody ignored me I think that anaconda already have such feature,
as I noticed a line for language

if self.listStore.get_value(iter, 1) == current:

and another for the keyboard layour

if self.modelStore.get_value(iter, 0) == default:

so highlighting English is not hardcoded into anaconda, and it read current
or default from a place I don't know we need to know what is that place and
to let pungi or livecd-creator set the default there, that's it

BTW: I suppose Hiyas is a greeting in your language, I would love to know
which language is it and what does it mean

O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and
made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye
may despise (each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of
Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full
knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).
  -- meaning of V49:13 from Quran