[OpenIndiana-discuss] Problems with mate-settings-daemon

[Jean-Pierre André]

stes at PANDORA.BE wrote on 9/2/21 9:01 PM:
> 
> There's two aspects here:
> 
>   1) the language and keyboard choice during install
>   2) the MATE settings

No, there is a single issue : the MATE setting do not work.
It works neither in the install phase nor in normal situation
after the install is completed.
The issues with keyboard (and display) are just consequences.

> 
> Regarding MATE, I can launch
> 
>   mate-control-center
> 
> which seems to work: I can add layouts in Keyboard layout there as well.
> 
> I can launch the control center from the global menu : System -> Control Center as well.

This is not how I did, but I get the same results from the Control Center.

> 
> Works for me ... using the latest OI 2021.04 on physical hardware ...
> 
> You have to further clarify what problem you are exactly having in the area of MATE settings.

Sure. I have put the screenshots on
https://jp-andre.pagesperso-orange.fr/Settings.html

This is on VirtualBox 6.1.22 for testing before installing on
real hardware, which I will surely not do, I am to stay on the
previous version.

Note : this version works correctly on VirtualBox through ssh.

Jean-Pierre

> Now regarding the OI install.
> 
> The documentation of OpenIndiana documents language and keyboard options for the installer.
> 
> http://docs.openindiana.org/handbook/getting-started/#installing-openindiana
> 
> The screenshots there show how the installer first asks for keyboard layout.
> 
> I just tested an install ISO image from OI:
> 
>   OI-hipster-text-20200504.iso
> 
> that image on startup first asks for keyboard layout.
> 
> Another image :
> 
>   OI-hipster-text-20210430.iso
> 
> it also asks for the keyboard layout !  That's the current ISO from 2021.
> 
> I entered 15 for French and 7 for language English.
> 
> I had to use the QWERTY layout for those answers.
> 
> But from that point on it switches to AZERTY layout (the installer then starts using the keyboard with the AZERTY keymap).
> 
> So as far as I can see at least for the text installer iso images,
> all is normal and as documented and how it was always in OpenSolaris as well.
> 
> After install I boot into the OpenIndiana system which was setup with keymap French.
> 
> Indeed I get:
> 
> # svccfg -s svc:/system/keymap:default
> svc:/system/keymap:default> listprop keymap/layout
> keymap/layout  astring  French
> svc:/system/keymap:default>
> 
> 
> In this case I did not use my script to change the property ...
> 
> It is simply the installer that did this.
> 
> There is a technical difference however.
> 
> The installer seems to create a site.xml file
> 
>     /etc/svc/profile/site.xml
> 
> this site.xml file contains the French setting for system/keymap the layout property.
> 
> This is basically the same but SMF is a layered database,
> which I think is fairly confusing by the way,
> but it gets its values from various 'layers'.
> 
> The installer is perhaps using the property via the site-profile but I am not sure.
> 
> The site.xml has a comment :
> 
> "This file contains template of System Configuration profile.
> .. It is used during first boot of installed system configures SMF"
> 
> The other layers are : admin (which is what I used 'administrative changes')
> system-profile and manifest.
> 
> # svcprop -p keymap/layout system/keymap:default
> French
> 
> Anyway this is technical details, there may be subtle differences in between what the text installer does and what my script does, but they goal is in both cases to change the  SMF repo.
> 
> Perhaps the site.xml was simply used during first boot to load the SMF property at the admin layer as well.
> 
> Before changing the SMF repo you can make a backup of it:
> 
>     svccfg archive > /tmp/mydb.xml
> 
> The idea of the special BE (boot environment) was also to make a backup of
> 
>      /etc/svc/repository.db
> 
> which is the file that has the keymap/layout setting.
> 
> Regards,
> David Stes
>