Comment 10 for bug 1892014

Hi again,

On 2020-08-27 08:25, Alkis Georgopoulos wrote:
>> Possibly console-setup could be modified again, so the default
>> shortcut depends on XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP ("No toggling" for GNOME
>> and "Alt+Shift" for others). That way there wouldn't be a need to
>> involve ubiquity or other desktops.
>
> When launching a console, XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP isn't guaranteed to be
> set. E.g. one can just switch to vt2 and login there, or one can run
> `sudo -i` which doesn't preserve the XDG_* environment variables.
> Losing the ability to type Greek because I used `sudo -i` wouldn't
> be appropriate.

The configuration typically does not happen when you launch a console; with that approach /etc/default/keyboard would be already changed on non-GNOME machines. So I don't think the absence of XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP in those situations matters.

>> Right. Super+Space is default on GNOME.
>
> Up to now, /etc/default/keyboard allowed for defining a shortcut
> GLOBALLY, and the console, the display managers, and all the desktop
> environments respected that. Is supporting "a global shortcut" no
> longer a Debian/Ubuntu goal?

It's not unsupported. "dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration" can be run whenever you like.

What we know is that a global shortcut isn't compatible with the way gnome-control-center currently works, since it may easily be overwritten as soon as the user makes changes via Settings.

We also know that setting Alt+Shift prevents a user (at least on GNOME) from using Alt+Shift+<some letter> shortcuts. So the previous default came with that issue (which itself is a very old bug; see bug #36812).

And it's not obvious that just Alt+Shift is the best choice for a global shortcut; many users would prefer Ctrl+Shift, CapsLock, or something else.

Those three reasons make up the background for the changes made in response to bug #1762952.

>> As regards the console, is there a use case which would be worth
>> to take into consideration where there is a need to switch to a
>> non-latin keyboard layout?
>
> Normal PC usage is impossible without it. Some examples:
>
> # Change directory to Desktop cd "Επιφάνεια εργασίας"
>
> # Edit a file nano Αρχείο.txt
>
> # Set a user's name usermod -c Άλκης alkisg

Those are tasks which I would accomplish with a terminal emulator such as gnome-terminal, not a TTY console.

But I think the approach I propose (i.e. special case GNOME) may be a bit complex code wise, and I'm disinclined to propose the actual code changes. It didn't fall out well last time I tried to change the console-setup package. :/

So we would need some involvement from Adam or someone else in the ~canonical-foundations team to evaluate whether the idea is sensible and doable. Pinging some of them on IRC about this bug report might help moving it forward.