No language chooser on login screen in LightDM

[Matthias Niess]

There is no option to choose the language at login. I'm reporting this as a new bug (instead of LP: 803858) because this is specifically a regression in trusty.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: lightdm 1.9.12-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-18.38-generic 3.13.6
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-18-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.13.3-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Fri Mar 21 19:44:28 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-03-11 (10 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Alpha amd64+mac (20140302)
SourcePackage: lightdm
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Simon Steinbeiß (ochosi)]

Hi, could you please post your /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf?

The language-menu is present by default, but we added some configuration options to the greeter, so it's theoretically possible to hide the language-menu.

@seb128: Are you sure that this bug is in lightdm-gtk-greeter? The dependencies.txt file seems to point to unity-greeter being in use.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

On 2014-03-21 22:44, Simon Steinbeiß wrote:
> @seb128: Are you sure that this bug is in lightdm-gtk-greeter? The
> dependencies.txt file seems to point to unity-greeter being in use.

unity-greeter is included in the Depends list of ubuntu-desktop, which I think is the reason for the entry in dependencies.txt. It doesn't mean that lightdm-gtk-greeter is not installed.

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

Yes, please provide the file /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf

If you are using a desktop that is not lubuntu or xubuntu, you likely have the default ubuntu configuration file. When we were updating the packaging, we kept the Ubuntu settings the same, and one of them was that the language menu was not shown.

I'd be in favor of changing that and displaying the language menu, and will probably provide a patch for that this weekend. In the meantime, lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf please. :-)

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

On 2014-03-22 03:00, Sean Davis wrote:
> When we were updating the packaging, we kept the Ubuntu settings the
> same, and one of them was that the language menu was not shown.

No, it was not. The language menu had been shown by default in Ubuntu since lightdm-gtk-greeter 1.3.1-0ubuntu2.

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/trusty/lightdm-gtk-greeter/trusty/revision/7

> I'd be in favor of changing that and displaying the language menu,
> and will probably provide a patch for that this weekend.

Please do.

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

Ok, going back and checking again, I see the correct setting:

show-language-selector=true

I will fix this package ASAP.

Thanks!

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

You're welcome. Please note that that language chooser is one of my pet features. ;-)

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

Ok, I'm looking at the default packaging and we do have the correct configuration.

https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/trusty/lightdm-gtk-greeter/trusty/view/head:/debian/lightdm-gtk-greeter-ubuntu.conf#L27
indicators=~language;~session;~power

Could you provide your lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf, or at least the lines pertaining to indicators? I'd like to properly diagnose this issue.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Hi again, Sean!

I'm not the one having the issue, but to be sure I just installed lightdm-gtk-greeter on an updated Ubuntu trusty, and the language chooser showed up as usual - and worked as expected too. :)

Can it possibly be that the bug reporter expected the UN flag, and didn't realize that the language chooser indicator now is represented by a simple "en_US" or whatever text string?

An off topic question: Why isn't ~a11y there by default?

[Matthias Niess (mniess)]

Hi all. The package "lightdm-gtk-greeter" was not installed on my fresh install of the 14.04 daily image. I don't have a /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf in my system. That is why I reported the bug against lightdm instead of lightdm-gtk-greeter because the latter is not a default package.

~$ LANG=en apt-cache policy lightdm-gtk-greeter
lightdm-gtk-greeter:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1.8.3-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
     1.8.3-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe amd64 Packages

[Matthias Niess (mniess)]

Additionally lightdm itself only has an /etc/lightdm/users.conf which only disables default users from being shown.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

@Matthias: Then this is a feature request wrt unity-greeter (the default greeter in Ubuntu) and not a regression.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Matthias Niess (mniess)]

@Gunnar: So by default Ubuntu does not have a language chooser? I can live with just installing lightdm-gtk-greeter, but the behavior is quite odd.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Yes it has, just not on the login screen.

System Settings -> Language Support

But it would be nice to have it on the login screen as well. As a reference, there was a discussion that preceded the language chooser in lightdm-gtk-greeter.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2011-July/003137.html

https://launchpad.net/bugs/803858