Bug#619711: console-setup: breaks copying keymap to initramfs
reassign 619711 initramfs-tools
thanks
On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 12:49:24PM +0100, Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe wrote:
>
> if a system's keymap needs to be loaded during the initramfs stage,
> initramfs-tools' /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/keymap looks for
> /etc/console-setup/cached.kmap.gz
> and copies it to the initramfs.
I had no idea that initramfs-tools does this. I think this was wrong
even with old version of console-setup because in some situations
cached.kmap.gz will not correspond to the actual configuration and in
some versions of the package it was even possible for this file not to
exist.
> console-setup 1.71 changed the name of this file to
> /etc/console-setup/cached_${CHARMAP}_$backspace$VARIANT.kmap.gz
> i.e. something like
> /etc/console-setup/cached_ISO-8859-15_del.kmap.gz
The new version of console-setup tries to guess good values for several
configuration options if values are not provided in its configuration
files. Because of this, it is possible (when the system environment
changes - locale and/or terminal settings) that a new keymap will be
required even when the user has not changed anything in the
configuration files of console-setup. Hence, it would be impossible for
console-setup to tell whether cached.kmap.gz can be used or the keymap
has to be regenerated.
> There are several alternatives to fix this bug like
> * symlinking the new name to the old
> * moving the keymap-copying from initramfs-tools to console-setup
> * updating initramfs-tools to honor the new keymap name
It will be difficult for initramfs-tools to tell what is the correct
name of the cached keymap. Symlinking the new name to the old is
unreliable so I'd prefer not to implement this. Because of this in
version 1.72 of console-setup a new option of setupcon is implemented
--save-keyboard. Suppose you want to save the keymap in
/tmp/initrd/etc/console-setup/cached.kmap.gz. Then simply use the
following command:
setupcon --save-keyboard /tmp/initrd/etc/console-setup/cached.kmap.gz
Alternatively, instead of --save-keyboard you can use --setup-dir. I
will explain this second option in a separate bug report. Both new
options of setupcon are for now undocumented because I want to know
first that they will be useful.
Anton Zinoviev
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