Bootloader localization

Bootloader localization

[Miguel]

Hi everybody!

I've been working on these patches and I've been able to generate a
derivation with the format expected by Grub during bootloading, use it
in the grub.cfg file. I removed the test for the folder inside the
configuration file and added a check for the "locale" output during
the file generation. Maybe it is not quite elegant, but I'm open to
ideas. Now there are 4 patches instead of 3.

What do you think?

Best regards,
Miguel

PS: I CC'ed the mailing list too looking for other ideas.

El Tue, 23 Apr 2019 15:17:02 +0200
Miguel <rosen644835@gmail.com> escribió:
> Hello Guix!
> 
> As a Grub translator, I've been hacking a little bit in order to
> provide locale information to Grub. I use Guix in a daily basis, as my
> main computer operating system, and I this is a key step in order to
> provide a better experience to the all kind of users, who may do not
> know other languages than their native one.
> 
> My current idea, implemented in the following patches, is something
> along these lines:
>   1. Store locale information into boot-parameters file. This patch
>   contains a quite silly test that requires wiser review.
>   2. Provide this information to the bootloader at the configuration
>   time. This, ideally, should provided at installation time too, but
>   I'm stuck seeing my first messages in english when grub asks for the
>   whole-disk encryption passphrase as I don't know how to create a
>   working core.img yet.
>   3. Add a snippet to the generated grub.cfg file with the language
>   information. Some configurations, as /boot in a separate partition,
>   does not work with this patch, but take it as a proof of concept.
> 
> Lacking points:
>   1. No support for other bootloaders yet. I don't know any of them
> too much, but I'm unaware of their localization support.
>   2. Grub installation process is not transactional enough. I have
> some ideas for that, to be discussed in another thread, although one
> key point is tightly related with this topic: /boot/grub/locale
>   generation. Having this folder as a derivation would make explicit
>   the dependency, but I have to work more on this and I'm open to any
>   ideas.
> 
> WDYT?
> 
> Best regards,
> Miguel

Re: [bug#35394] [PATCH 0/3] Bootloader localization

[Miguel Arruga Vivas]

Hi Ludo’,

El Mon, 29 Apr 2019 09:56:25 +0200
Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> escribió:
> Hi Miguel,
> 
> Thanks a lot for this work.

I've been quite silent about this because I wanted to solve the issue
with .mo files in a better way, but my current understanding is that
the best way to go with that is to make grub installation
(store-)reproducible and removing /boot altogether, so I'll open
a different thread on the mailing list about that.  For the moment,
the patches following this mail rely on the installation
of /boot/grub/locale, usually generated by grub-install.  The generated
grub.cfg scriptlet enables the use case for /boot in a different
partition found in many other distributions (which breaks the boot
when /gnu/store is encrypted in a different partition, I'm going to fill
a bug for that too).

I've tested them on the following machine configurations, on top of
commit 5f760515c8:
	- grub-efi on x86_64-gnu-linux:
		* Encrypted partition for the whole disk.
		* Separate "/boot" (ext4) and "/" (ext4 and btrfs)
		  partitions.
	- grub-pc on x86_64-gnu-linux:
		* Same as grub-efi, plus
		* Encrypted and different "/boot" and "/" partitions,
		  typing manually in the console
		  "cryptomount (hdX,msdosX)" with the "/" partition to
		  allow grub loading the kernel image.


> FWIW, I’m holding off review and integration after 1.0, but I’m happy
> if someone else reviews :-),

I'm CCing the list to bring some attention onto it, I think it's
on-topic enough to worth a try.  The hardest part for review is the new
test case, because I wanted to be 100% sure I didn't break anything.
As you can see, the tested code didn't need almost any change, although
I've made some changes on the test case from the last set of patches.

> and I’ll be really happy to see it in master once 1.0 is out.

I wish we'll see it in master soon.

Best regards,
Miguel