[Bug 553162] Re: Set $LANGUAGE if the user picks a different locale in gdm, so that language-selector and gdm stop disagreeing

[Martin Pitt]

Hello Gunnar,

Gunnar Hjalmarsson [2010-10-04  8:38 -0000]:
> language-selector sets $LANGUAGE for language, and $LANG for other
> locales. That's why it's inconsistent that gdm sometimes uses $LANG
> when dealing with the language to be used for message display.

gdm doesn't have such an elaborate locale/language configuration as
the language-selector, it just as a simple locale selector. It simply
doesn't support setting a list of language fallbacks for $LANGUAGE.
It's not supposed to either, the main point is that you can start a
desktop session in a different language. You can then fine-tune it
with language-selector.

Thus gdm is not really inconsistent, it just doesn't have feature
parity with language-selector.

Therefore it should not try to change your $LANGUAGE settings either.
It should just clear it when it changes $LANG, so that $LANG actually
becomes effective.

> - As you pointed out in comment #24, the previous code didn't take into
> account different syntax variants for setting and exporting $LANGUAGE.
> Now the code for editing ~/.profile is safer.

No, please let's not. gdm is _not_ a tool for setting $LANGUAGES.
That's what language-selector is for.

> - $LC_MESSAGES is set to take care of applications that don't recognize
> $LANGUAGE.

That should be fixed in language-selector, not gdm. gdm already sets
$LANG, which firefox & friends do recognize.

Thanks!

Martin
-- 
Martin Pitt                        | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)

-- 
Set $LANGUAGE if the user picks a different locale in gdm, so that language-selector and gdm stop disagreeing
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/553162
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Status in Ubuntu Translations: Triaged
Status in “gdm” package in Ubuntu: In Progress
Status in “language-selector” package in Ubuntu: In Progress

Bug description:
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