Calamares uses language different than the one selected via *ubuntu-installer-prompt

[Leó Kolbeinsson]

Testing Lubuntu Noble daily ISO dated 03-03-2024

The lubuntu-installer-prompt fails to send selected language to calamares installer.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Boot the ISO and select "try or install Lubuntu"
2. select - select your language and select British English (for example) and confirm
3. select "Install Lubuntu"
4. Calamares installer then starts with the language used in the users geographical location i.e in this case Icelandic

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 24.04
Package: lubuntu-installer-prompt 24.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.8.0-11.11-generic 6.8.0-rc4
Uname: Linux 6.8.0-11-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.28.0-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CasperVersion: 1.494
CurrentDesktop: LXQt
Date: Mon Mar 4 15:08:07 2024
LiveMediaBuild: Lubuntu 24.04 LTS "Noble Numbat" - Daily amd64 (20240303)
SourcePackage: lubuntu-installer-prompt
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Leó Kolbeinsson (leok)]

Also in kubuntu-installer-prompt

[Aaron Rainbolt (arraybolt3)]

What language were you trying? Calamares might just not have supported it. I tried this yesterday or the day before (if I remember correctly) and the language got through to Calamares just fine.

[Aaron Rainbolt (arraybolt3)]

Nevermind, I didn't read thoroughly. I'll try on my end and see what happens.

[ԜаӀtеr Ⅼарсһуnѕkі (wxl)]

I can't reproduce the behavior. I picked a language that is not the common language of my location and one that was localized to completely different location. Everything still worked fine.

[Leó Kolbeinsson (leok)]

I have tested this on many machines and using several differt language selections ..and always when I advance to the installer I get Icelandic which is the language in my geographical location.

However if I select "try Lubuntu" I get the language that I selected in step 2 as per original report.

[ԜаӀtеr Ⅼарсһуnѕkі (wxl)]

After much testing, it was determined that the installer-prompt was properly setting the locale, so it's not the issue. Calamares did indeed pick up on the changed locale (obvious through the session.log) but then changed the language used based on GeoIP data. I think the reason why those of us in the US couldn't repeat it is because (again, according to the log), the country code was being reported as "unusable."

Since GeoIP has been known to be problematic over time (the "unusable" country code being further evidence) and since the canonical user experience should be installing via the installer-prompt, we have opted to remove the GeoIP checking in the welcome module. For those installing via the live environment, it should be simple enough to select their preferred language, just as they would on the installer-prompt.

Fix is in calamares-settings-ubuntu 1:24.04.18.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/2055893