Bug#559795: debian-installer: The purpose of choosing a country is unclear

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

On Monday 07 December 2009, Florian Zumbiehl wrote:
> On the one hand, the non-localization case is a bit illogical
> when it tells you that the country will be used for determining
> your locale(!?!). Also this is explained only after you have
> selected a "region", the purpose of which seems mysterious at
> first.

Hmmm. The region dialog is only shown first if
- you are installing in expert mode
- you selected a language that does not have multiple variants.
(And I agree further improvement is needed for that case.)

In all other cases you should first get a dialog listing countries, with 
the explanation that it determines the time zone and that you "should 
normally select the country where you live".

> On the other hand, your choice of country limits your choice of
> time zones. It seems sensible to me to use that information as
> a default, as it usually will coincide, but IMO it should be
> possible to override it, so that you can select a de_AT locale
> with UTC+5, or whatever applies to you. Those are not logically
> pointless choices, as time zone configuration tends to depend
> on the place where you are living while the locale tends to
> depend on the user's cultural background.

Correct, and that really is fully supported now.

Try the following:
- start a default installation
- select German as language
- select Russia as country, which means
  - select "other" in the initial shortlist
  - select Europe
  - select Russia
- you are then asked for your "preferred locale"; select de_AT.UTF-8
- later in the installation you will be asked to choose between the time
  zones valid for Russia

The important thing is to really select the country where you live 
initially and I suspect you did not do that.

Cheers,
FJP