Language chooser at login

[Marc Deslauriers]

On Tue, 2011-07-05 at 13:06 +1000, Robert Ancell wrote:
> On 04/07/11 21:57, Marc Deslauriers wrote:
> > On Mon, 2011-07-04 at 12:44 +1000, Robert Ancell wrote:
> >> From what I've gathered talking to people the classes of user are:
> >> 1. Users who set the system language at install/first boot time, and
> >> never change it (the vast majority)
> >> 2. English as a second language users, who switch between their native
> >> language and English (this is a class of user I don't understand well). 
> >> I think the reason for this is because the translations are not always
> >> good enough?  Is this a power user feature?
> >> 3. Testers/developers who want to easily change language for testing
> >> (their requirements should not be exposed to normal users)
> > There is also:
> >
> > 4. People who create accounts for additional users
> >
> > In that scenario the tools that create accounts need to be modified to
> > have a place to set the user's language and keyboard.
> The Oneiric Control Center allows the language to be set for a user when
> they are created.  There is not a setting for keyboard, however as a
> computer has a single physical keyboard and the system layout will match
> it this doesn't seem to be a big issue (i.e. if a user wants to use a
> keyboard layout that does not match the keyboard they are probably
> advanced, and can select it from the control center with the mouse only).

This is only valid if the physical keyboard is plugged into the computer
that is actually running the X session. In VDI environments where the
desktop is in the cloud, which is something that will become more and
more common, the physical keyboard plugged into the server has no
relation to the keyboard preferences of the different users who are
logged in.

Using the system keyboard by default is probably fine for Oneiric
though, as it will cover most uses. The user creation tool should
probably be fixed to add keyboard layout in future releases though
before running desktops in the cloud becomes a popular enterprise
scenario.

> >
> > This is a _legal_ issue in certain multilingual countries where it's
> > unacceptable for a user to login to the wrong language and keyboard and
> > try and find a control panel setting to change the default.
> Could you elaborate on what this legal issue is?  Note as above if the
> system administrator has correctly setup a user their language will be
> correct on login.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_bilingualism_in_Canada
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language

If the administrator can set the default language when creating a new
user, it should be fine.

Marc.