Re: setting language/keyboard at boot

[intrigeri <intrigeri@boum.org>]

Hello,

Daniel wrote (Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:41:35 +0200):

> Bernd Kloss wrote:
>> I would find it quite comfortable to have a boot-menu that lets you
>> choose language and keyboard at boot to have your desktop AND
>> konsoles in your keyboard-layout.

We also desperately need such a "easily choose locale at runtime"
feature, as appending parameters to the kernel command line is
unfortunately too complicated / bothersome for most of our users.

> I'm sorry, but the current syslinux menu (vesamenu.c32) doesn't
> scale enough in order to support that in an usable fashion.
> you would end up with a dozen of submenues (layout-a, {layout-a1,
> {layout-a11, ..}, layout-b, layout-c, layout-d) since you cannot use
> more than 4 entries for compatibility reasons (small screens with
> 640x480, that is).

gfxboot has somehow been integrated in upstream syslinux as of
version 3.74 [1], which is in >=Squeeze, so it might be the right time
to have a new look at this feature request.

A plan could be:

1a. (would be perfect, but probably too much work) Globally add
    multi-language support, i.e.:
    - extend LH_LANGUAGE to support several languages
    - adapt e.g. lh_chroot_localization to support multiple languages
    - add a boolean option to toggle the language selection boot menu
      on/off
    - implement such a boot menu for the various supported bootloaders
      that are able to properly display long menus; which ones are
      these, BTW?

1b. (a bit hackish but more realistic to begin with) Add
    multi-language support to syslinux only, i.e.:
    - add a new LH_SYSLINUX_LANGUAGES configuration variable that
      contains the list of to-be-supported languages, in the same
      format as LH_LANGUAGE uses
    - add a boolean option to toggle the language selection boot menu
      on/off
    - implement such a syslinux language selection boot menu

2. get gfxboot in Debian [2]; Daniel, what kind of help could you make
   use of, from a non-DD? and from another DD?

Any thoughts?
Shall we wait lh v2 to implement such changes?

[1] http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Changelog#Changes_in_3.74
[2] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=465768

Bye,
-- 
  intrigeri <intrigeri@boum.org>
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