Broken console characters

[Giorgos Logiotatidis]

Hi,
 I installed breezy preview in greek and greek characters in console appear like
boxes. I get something like "Setting Console default font fail " on bootup. See
the attached screenshot.

Reminds me of bug http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=7391

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

Created an attachment (id=3688)
screenshot of the bug

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

Hi,
I tested yesterday's night build. The system boots up and I get boxes again
(like the screenshot of the bug attachment). While installation is running I
switch consoles and I run /etc/init.d/console-screen.sh switch changes console
font and the fonts (although not boxes) are not correct, yet. In the next full
refresh of the dialog the fonts get fixed! (I post screenshots)

**This is a "must fix" bug, cause it breaks greek installation and forces many
users to quit ubuntu before they even try. It happened before (warty) should not
happen again! **

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

Created an attachment (id=4087)
Console after running console-setup.sh for the first time

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

Created an attachment (id=4088)
Console after major refresh of the dialog boxes

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

Hi,
I tested yesterday's night build. The system boots up and I get boxes again
(like the screenshot of the bug attachment). While installation is running I
switch consoles and I run /etc/init.d/console-screen.sh switch changes console
font and the fonts (although not boxes) are not correct, yet. In the next full
refresh of the dialog the fonts get fixed! (I post screenshots)

**This is a "must fix" bug, cause it breaks greek installation and forces many
users to quit ubuntu before they even try. It happened before (warty) should not
happen again! **

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

The usplash application is incompatible with setting custom console fonts at the
moment. Please try to boot without the "splash" argument. You can use
System/Administration/Boot to remove it (look for "Parameters" in the properties
of the default kernel).

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

Removing "splash" from boot parameters works but we should really find a "real"
solution. If we don't until release I really believe that usplash should be
disabled when system language charset is not Latin-1 (this should also affect
other languages than Greek right?).

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

I uplaoded a new gdm (gdm_2.8.0.4-0ubuntu8) that will chvt switch away and run
console-screen.sh before gdm actually starts. It works pretty well in my tests
here. It would be nice if you could confirm that it fixes the problem for you as
well.

Cheers,
 Michael

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

(In reply to comment #8)
> I uplaoded a new gdm (gdm_2.8.0.4-0ubuntu8) that will chvt switch away and run
> console-screen.sh before gdm actually starts. It works pretty well in my tests
> here. It would be nice if you could confirm that it fixes the problem for you as
> well.
>
> Cheers,
> Michael

Hi,
 Thanks for the new gdm package which works fine but is solves a part of the
problem. The most important part is that the user can't complete the install
because of the fonts. Gdm runs after the install completes so your patch fixes
the problem on an already installed system.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> (In reply to comment #8)
> Thanks for the new gdm package which works fine but is solves a part of the
> problem. The most important part is that the user can't complete the install
> because of the fonts. Gdm runs after the install completes so your patch fixes
> the problem on an already installed system.

That should be fixed with the upload of usplash 0.1-11. It will exit usplash and
re-run console-screen.sh to set the console fonts in runlevel 2-5 as S98. A
testinstall with a current daily seems to not include usplash for some reason so
I wasn't able to do a real test.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Thanks for the new gdm package which works fine but is solves a part of the
> problem. The most important part is that the user can't complete the install
> because of the fonts. Gdm runs after the install completes so your patch fixes
> the problem on an already installed system.

I send a patch against base-config today that should fix this remaining issue in
stage2 of the install. That should (hopefully) resolve the issue now.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Is the console still working for you as expected on a current breezy system? I
wonder because I tested a greek install and now I get some funny looking
charackters on the console that don't look like greek chars (when I witch from X
to the console). This problem may be my install that wasn't normal for various
reasons. But I still would like to double check.

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

(In reply to comment #12)
> Is the console still working for you as expected on a current breezy system? I
> wonder because I tested a greek install and now I get some funny looking
> charackters on the console that don't look like greek chars (when I witch from X
> to the console). This problem may be my install that wasn't normal for various
> reasons. But I still would like to double check.
>

works fine

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

Hi,
patches work fine on my shiny breezy. Greek chars appear correct. thnx

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

(In reply to comment #12)
> Is the console still working for you as expected on a current breezy system? I
> wonder because I tested a greek install and now I get some funny looking
> charackters on the console that don't look like greek chars (when I witch from X
> to the console). This problem may be my install that wasn't normal for various
> reasons. But I still would like to double check.
>

Oops! Greek chars appear correct only on vt1! Running console-setup.sh does fix
this.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

A update to the current version of breezy will fix the fonts on all consoles (at
least it did that for me and my fresh greek install). I'll close the bug, please
reopen if the issue isn't fixed for you.