console-setup/layoutcode=en_US causes wrong keyboard selection

[Henry Wertz]

Binary package hint: console-setup

     I'm running a preseed install with Ubuntu 8.04, and what I found is with console-setup/layoutcode=en_US in the isolinux.cfg (for CD) and pxelinux.cfg/default (for net install), the keyboard layout is set to "af" (Afghanistan), so I cannot even login.

     I did eventually realize in ubuntu.seed, I had "d-i console-setup/layoutcode string us" and changing the string in isolinux.cfg and pxelinux.cfg/default to match fixed it (changed en_US to us).

     There are quite a few examples online that use en_US though, so I would say there are two solutions:

     1) Add a mention to the online preseed documentation that en_US and similar do not work for layoutcode even if they used to. (Preferred IMHO).

     2) Work up console-setup so it accepts formats like en_US again. (Might save a few people grief, but I do see this as inelegant since US keyboard layout's not language dependent, this isn't the clean solution.)

     Great work everybody! We've installed 1000's of copies of Ubuntu at the computer surplus I work at, and use it at home, and it works great! Since they are surplus, we get so many different models and ages of machines (right down to P2s and P3s), it's great to be able to just plug it into the install LAN and go work on something else knowing the install will work out of the box. (Also makes a nice burn-in test -- install failure points pretty solidly to a flakey computer 8-)

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Could you let me know where the en_US examples came from? console-setup has never accepted this, so they're just unambiguously wrong - I'd like to get that corrected.

[Damian Christey (damian-christey)]

Same bug here, except my preseed file doesn't even have a console-setup/layoutcode line.

The preseeded install seemed to work fine, didn't ask me any questions, but upon reboot I noticed that none of the letter keys worked and I couldn't log in.

I booted a Live CD, and found that /etc/default/console-setup contained the line:
XKBLAYOUT="af"

[Damian Christey (damian-christey)]

I misread the bug.
Changing console-setup/layoutcode=en_US to console-setup/layoutcode=us in my pxelinux.cfg fixed the problem.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Damian, same question. From where did you get the example that recommended console-setup/layoutcode=en_US? I want to get that incorrect documentation fixed.

[Henry Wertz (hwertz)]

     Maybe this has already been fixed in docs? I probably had gotten the layoutcode=en_US from some old debian doc, or blog or something, last year. Now the only URL I can find anywhere that mentions this is: http://ubuntulinuxhelp.com/ubuntu-linux-plug-n-play-zone-revisited/

     Umm.. yeah. I looked around the pxeboot, network install, etc. docs and don't see anywhere good to put a note regarding layoutcode (since the instructions seem to set keyboard using an entirely separate preseed). Unless Damian finds something maybe this bug just needs to be set invalid?