Bug#1110745: console-setup: keyboard is broken after upgrade from bookworm to trixie
On Mon, 11 Aug 2025 12:04:29 +0700 =?utf-8?B?VHLhuqduIEgu?= Trung
<work@trung.fun> wrote:
> Sure I can explain a little further…
>
> The situation before upgrade was that I was using my own keyboard:
> » https://soft.trung.fun/ban-phim/ban-phim.en.html#cai-dat
>
> which modified the symbol file `/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/vn`
>
> For specific content of my (publicly available) symbol file:
> » https://soft.trung.fun/ban-phim/src/
>
> This symbol file was overwritten when I upgraded to Trixie.
>
> There was warning about some changes of keyboard config but it was
not
>From my understanding, /usr/share is not a conffile location.
/usr/local is for admin/user to place their changes but I doubt
console-setup support it, or even custom changes. I believe this is a
feature request and in no way a regression or a breakage, this is only
how it was meant to work.
Could be you could tweak console-setup setup in /etc for it to look to
/usr/local/share for your custom file.
But it is likely an upstream feature request, a feature that was never
supported, not a critical bug.
The fact you can physically modify any file on the filesystem when you
are root does not mean it is supported for any file on the filesystem
to be modified.
But indeed support for custom keyboard symbol files is a valuable
feature request, but please request it as a whishlist.
I doubt console-setup advertise support for modifying
/usr/share/X11/xkb files.
I have done that a long time ago and back then there were howto to do
that. But the aim was to ship the changes upstream (my changes were for
media keys) not to have the distribution support me having custom
changes in these file.
By the way /usr/share/X11/xbk files are not overwritten by console-
setup but by xbd-data.
But indeed if you want support for another location, it is likely
console-data does not support such custom locations, so you should open
a wishlist bug report to console-setup therefor (if there are no
upstream bug tracker, because as an upstream feature request, you are
best to report to the project bug tracker you want the developers to
implement the feature).
Likely, the best is the already implemented option, that is for you to
submit your changes to xkb-data upstream and then just use the new
layout/variant.
Please change the bug level, what you are telling is broken was never
meant to be supported as far as I know. And /usr files cannot, as far
as I know, be conffiles.
https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#configuration-files
configuration file
A file that affects the operation of a program, or provides site-
or host-specific information, or otherwise customizes the behavior of a
program. Typically, configuration files are intended to be modified by
the system administrator (if needed or desired) to conform to local
policy or to provide more useful site-specific behavior.
conffile
A file listed in a package’s conffiles file, and is treated
specially by dpkg (see Details of configuration).
The distinction between these two is important; they are not
interchangeable concepts. Almost all conffiles are configuration files,
but many configuration files are not conffiles.
https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ap-pkg-conffiles.html#
Turns out that to me /usr/share/X11/xkb is not a conffile (thus should
not be managed by debian packages) and is a configuration file but not
aimed to be modified by administrators and users but only by upstream.
At the very least move the bug to xkb-data because console-data does
not ship files in /usr/share/X11/xkb nor does it overwrites them.
Note that you can use `reportbug /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/vn` and it
will automatically detect which package hold this file if any.
Cheers
Alban
> clear that it had over-written this symbol file. I think French and
> Greek was mentioned but there was no mention of Vietnamese (or any
other
In /usr/share/doc/xkb-data/NEWS.Debian.gz I see mention of extended
variant of Greek that was removed because less extended than the basic
variant that was kept.
> languages). My customized symbol file and hence my keyboard continued
to
> work as expected after `apt` has finished upgrading since it was
loaded
> in RAM and X11 never received signal to reload the newly installed
> symbol file. The problem surface only after reboot when the system
loads
> the newly installed file.
>
> Because the new file installed is nothing like the symbol file before
> upgrading, there was no way for me (or anyone who have customized
their
> keyboard regardless of which languages) to write the correct password
to
> log-in. In my case, it was password, I think this can potentially
cause
> problem for writing correct username too.
>
> This is as specific as I can go unless I reveal my own things.
>
> If SSH and `sshd` were not configured to accept log-in via key-pair,
I
> can't think of any other way to log-in.
>
> —————————————
> Trần H. Trung
> —————————————————
> https://trung.fun ;
> tel:+84-794-819-533
> mailto:work@trung.fun ;
> xmpp:trần.h.trung@trung.fun
> ———————————————————————————
> PGP: 272B C112 E0C1 CA52 2987 8E06 4C2E 262F 6514 7810
> ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
>
>
> On 25/08/10 08:07pm, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> > Control: severity -1 serious
> >
> > Trần H. Trung <work@trung.fun> (2025-08-11):
> > > Package: console-setup
> > > Version: 1.240
> > > Severity: critical
> > > Justification: breaks the whole system
> > > X-Debbugs-Cc: work@trung.fun
> > >
> > > Keyboard map was overwritten when upgrade from bookworm to
trixie.
> > >
> > > I was unable to log-in since I can not use my own keyboard
symbols map.
> > > My password was interpreted with wrong symbols since they were
modified
> > > by the upgrade.
> >
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