[Bug 249340] Re: Gutsy->Hardy upgrade hangs in localedef

[mfg8876]

I'd like to regretfully add that this bug is very much present in all
these releases: 7.04, 7.10, 8.04, 8.10.

Granted, it's not easily reproducible but it does affect a lot of users
(regardless of one's linux know-how).

The problem almost certainly lies in one of the localedef subroutines
and is not bound to the underlying kernel (I have tried both downgrading
the belocs-locale-bin package in 8.04 and updating it on a 7.04 release
to no avail). Since this is in the gnu c lib it is understandably not an
ubuntu maintained code. Alas, with ubuntu being the most wide spread
distro among desktop users (feel free to correct me on this), it
receives the most user feedback.

Instead of pretty much rejecting the idea of trying to figure out where
the code fails (for which I have to agree with you, if it's not
reproducible there's no point to go out on a wild goose chase), I 'd
like to offer an alternative.

Localedef appears to check sth (most likely the contents of the folder
/usr/lib/locale) and if it needs to install a new locale/variation combo
it returns "done" if everything was executed properly or if nothing
needs to be updated it returns "up-to-date" for each locale/variation
already installed. In my case I almost always either get a segmentation
fault or worse, the machine reboots.

The proposal is simply this and on the condition that the files being
installed are 100% generic and independent of any user/setup options (a
condition I believe pretty much applies). Offer the contents of the
/usr/lib/locale folder for the most popular (if not all) locales as a
download (for each locale separately). In this fashion, if one was to
copy these files to /usr/lib/locale and install/update a locale,
localedef would consider the specific locale/variation to be up-to-date
and proceed without causing any errors. And no, I haven't tried it but
I'm pretty certain this workaround will work.

At the very least please take this proposal into serious consideration.
Being a proponent of free (but user-friendly) software I find myself
questioning my decision to use open source code be that a java library
or an OS. Too many times have I found myself trying to solve a non-
trivial issue (and sometimes finding it impossible to come up with a
decent workaround) , wasting a lot of time I could have devoted to more
serious matters. This is an easy workaround for those few(?) of us
unlucky to have been entangled. Plz help.

-- 
Gutsy->Hardy upgrade hangs in localedef
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/249340
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