Re: Dictionaries-common prompts users FIVE times during a default French desktop install

[Agustin Martin <agustin.martin@hispalinux.es>]

On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 06:03:48PM +0200, Christian Perrier wrote:
> 
> Frans reports that he has seen this for a pretty long time for English
> installs, indeed.

~ 6 months, not full sarge lifetime, and he also mentions that the problem
cannot be reproduced at will.

> Anyway, is there still a rationale for the dictionaries question to be
> *high* priority ? After all, the default is *always* a sensible 
> default so it should certainly deserve to be downgraded to a medium
> priority question. It will harm default installs way less than now.

Yes, there is that rationale when you are installing individual dicts.

But of course there is no such rationale if you are at the first
installation along with dictionaries-common and your system is not broken.

Note that current dictionaries-common.config code should *not* leave the
question as 'critical' for a normal install. This will only happen in
special setups (e.g., upgrading from woody with old alternatives set to
manual). For other setups priority will be set to 'low' if there is an
exact match or to 'medium' if a fallback was used.

There are some things I would like to know,

a) Does the problem you describe happens with wordlists too? Code is
   similar the the ispell dicts one. The only difference was that
   localization-config interfered with the ispell dict code while not with
   wordlist. In Frans example, wamerican+dictionaries-common should have
   triggered a debconf prompt if dictionaries-common code were not working.

b) Is localization-config in use or not? From Frans first mail I assumed
   that localization-config was not in use for ispell dicts. I had my doubts
   since I saw no mention in localization-config changelog. However from
   Frans last mail seemed that localization-config was not in use at all.
   What is the current status of localization-config w.r.t default ispell
   dict selection? Also, if first menu were a localization-config problem
   you should have seen an error message (with 'high' priority) before
   that menu.

c) Does debian-installer still use debian-installer/{language,country}?
   dictionaries-common.config relies on them. However, if they are no longer
   used, that would only lead to a single question for ispell dicts and a
   single question for wordlists, not to a question for every installed
   dict/wordlist. 

   I am testing some modifications so if no old alternative symlinks are
   present and debian-installer/{language,country} are not available, try
   selections after LANG, LC_MESSAGES and LC_ALL values. I am testing that
   in my system where base-config is not installed and so I previously got a
   single question for ispell dicts and a single question for wordlists,
   after purging all ispell/wordlists stuff and proceeding as described
   in my reply to Joey.

   For this experimental package, Using a LANG value having not exact match
   to dicts/wordlists and following the described procedure, I see no
   default ispell/wordlist debconf question for >= high priority threshold,
   and the default is reasonably set.

d) Is the problem reproducible?
   I now remember a 'debconf question asked on every upgrade' bug,
   (See #335612), due to debconf database corruption, presumably related to
   a nearly full /var partition. If you reproduce the problem, please look
   at the debconf database entries for the different dicts and
   dictionaries-comon questions, and report if there is something strange.

-- 
Agustin