Comment 9 for bug 407300

El Mo 22 de 03 de 2010 a les 07:52 +0000, en/na Martin Pitt va escriure:
> David Planella [2010-03-20 19:32 -0000]:
> > • GDM can only write LANG (and the LC_xx categories)
>
> Indeed, gdm does not currently have a concept of a "language list",
> just a locale picker.
>
> > • language-selector can write LANGUAGE
>
> (but also LANG)

But it seems that it either doesn't do it or GDM overwrites it. Arne
explained me last week that there is a problem with GDM restoring
the .dmrc file from /var/cache/gdm/$USER/dmrc, which might be related.

>
> > • That effectively means that the language one selects in GDM is
> useless, since LANGUAGE has precedence
>
> It's only useless if you fine-tuned your $LANG/$LANGUAGE in the
> language-selector. It does work fine if you didn't (and most people
> won't, I figure).
>

It's not just about fine tuning. Simply selecting a language in language
selector will lead you to this situation. I've tried this:

      * New install, choosing Catalan in the installer
      * I log in without doing any changes to the language in GDM
      * I start System > Administration > Language support
      * I choose English there
      * I log out
      * I log back in without doing any changes in the GDM language
        chooser
      * My session is half English and half Catalan due to LANGUAGE=en
        and LANG=ca_ES.utf8 (Firefox in Catalan, gnome-panel in English,
        gnome-menus in Catalan). I understand that this might be a
        problem in each application, as they should give LANGUAGE
        preference. Rather than filing a bug in each app right now,
        would it not make more sense to ensure that at least the first
        locale in LANGUAGE, the one in LANG and LC_MESSAGES are the
        same? (assuming it is possible to do such a thing, of course)

> So, I agree it's confusing, but I don't see how to easily rectify it.
> The best that comes to my mind is to disable the locale picker for
> users which have a $LANGUAGE set?
>

If that would also stop GDM from setting LANG, it might be an option.
I'm not sure if all cases can be covered, but I think an aim could be
that GDM and language-selector have got some minimal sane interaction at
least, since right now they work totally independently of each other.

Arne, you proposed something else already, but I cannot assess how much
work it is involved or whether this is doable/worth doing until beta2.

If not, do you think there is anything else we could do to make GDM play
a bit nicer with language-selector?