Bug#1110661: debian-live: installing trixie lxde live image in non-Thai locale results in non-functional Thai X Terminal
Simon McVittie <[email protected]> Sat, 9 Aug 2025 18:48:09 +0100
| Newsgroups | gmane.linux.debian.internationalization.general |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <aJeJ2YSud6d9pz6V__11753.4457983979$1754761770$gmane$org@remnant.pseudorandom.co.uk> |
Package: debian-live Severity: normal Control: affects -1 + xiterm+thai X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected], [email protected] Found during 13.0 release testing (originally by sqrt on #debian-cd, but I can reproduce it). Steps to reproduce ================== * Boot debian-live-13.0.0-amd64-lxde.iso * Install using Calamares, selecting a non-Thai locale (I used British English, en_GB) * Reboot to the installed system * main menu → System * If "Thai X Terminal" (the xiterm+thai package) appears, launch it * try to type some command, e.g. grep --help Expected result =============== * Either: - the Thai X Terminal is removed or not installed (because I chose a non-Thai locale, and it is presumably only interesting to Thai language users) and doesn't appear in the menu or: - the Thai X Terminal is installed - commands can be run in it Actual result ============= * xiterm+thai is installed * I see a bunch of messages in the terminal similar to: -bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (th_TH): No such file or directory * when I press keys, no text appears at the prompt Other information ================= When I installed from the *GNOME* live image (which installs locales-all, not just locales), xiterm+thai does work. However, it doesn't seem practically useful to anyone who cannot read Thai: it appears to be hard-coded to set LANG=th_TH, so for example `grep --help` gives me help text partially translated into Thai. If ordinary terminal emulators like gnome-terminal and LXTerminal are suitable for Thai-language users now that we have Unicode everywhere, then I'd suggest just using those terminals, rather than having a special Thai terminal preinstalled. Or, if xiterm+thai is necessary for Thai-language users, then it's OK for it to be in the live image, but I think the live installation process should automatically remove it whenever it installs a system that is configured for a non-Thai language. smcv