[Bug 1892014] Re: 18.04.14.7 regression: no alt_shift_toggle in XKBOPTIONS

[Alkis Georgopoulos]

Hi Gunnar, thank you for the feedback,

> Possibly console-setup could be modified again, so the default
shortcut depends on XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP ("No toggling" for GNOME and
"Alt+Shift" for others). That way there wouldn't be a need to involve
ubiquity or other desktops.

When launching a console, XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP isn't guaranteed to be
set. E.g. one can just switch to vt2 and login there, or one can run
`sudo -i` which doesn't preserve the XDG_* environment variables. Losing
the ability to type Greek because I used `sudo -i` wouldn't be
appropriate.

> Right. Super+Space is default on GNOME.

Up to now, /etc/default/keyboard allowed for defining a shortcut
GLOBALLY, and the console, the display managers, and all the desktop
environments respected that. Is supporting "a global shortcut" no longer
a Debian/Ubuntu goal?

> That's reasonably about personal preferences rather than geographical.

Well, the official Greek school books teach Alt+Shift for layout
toggling, so I'm not sure it can be called a "personal preference" and
not a geographical one. That said, I wouldn't mind if Linux decided to
globally endorse Win+Space, but AFAIK console doesn't support Win+Space
as an option yet.

> As regards the console, is there a use case which would be worth to
take into consideration where there is a need to switch to a non-latin
keyboard layout?

Normal PC usage is impossible without it. Some examples:

# Change directory to Desktop
cd "Επιφάνεια εργασίας"

# Edit a file
nano Αρχείο.txt

# Set a user's name
usermod -c Άλκης alkisg

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1892014

Title:
  18.04.14.7 regression: no alt_shift_toggle in XKBOPTIONS

Status in console-setup package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Up to ubuntu-mate-18.04.1.iso, everything was fine. Starting with
  18.04.2, XKB_OPTIONS does not contain "alt_shift_toggle" anymore and
  we cannot switch the keyboard layout to e.g. Greek using Alt+Shift.

  Reading the changelog, I see:

  $ ~/source/ubiquity$ git show 786a5325ef
  +console-setup (1.178ubuntu6) cosmic; urgency=medium
  +
  +  * keyboard-configuration.{config,templates}: There is no good default for
  +    layout toggling, stop pretending there is.  Console users can set one
  +    with dpkg-reconfigure or editing /etc/defaults/keyboard (LP: #1762952)

  I'm guessing that ubiquity duplicates some code from console-setup,
  and LP: #1762952 caused this regression.

  To reproduce:
  1) Start ubuntu-mate-18.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso
  2) Select Ελληνικά (Greek) and start installing Ubuntu using the default options
  3) Right after the keyboard layout step, run:
  $ grep XKBOPTIONS /etc/default/keyboard 
  XKBOPTIONS="grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll"
  4) Verify that you can switch to Greek with Alt+Shift

  Starting from ubuntu-mate-18.04.2-desktop-amd64.iso (.1=OK, .2=BAD), we cannot switch to Greek using Alt+Shift anymore:
  $ grep XKBOPTIONS /etc/default/keyboard 
  XKBOPTIONS="grp_led:scroll"

  Does ubiquity really expect the users to run `dpkg-reconfigure
  console-setup`?

  Note that selecting Greek in the syslinux menu produces the correct
  XKBOPTIONS, yet ubiquity overwrites them later on with the wrong ones.

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