Bugzilla – Bug 136028
Not all keyboard layouts available at boot time
Last modified: 2009-10-06 13:45:19 UTC
It is only possible to choose the language before starting the rescue system. Would be better to be able to choose keyboard because entering password with punctuation signs in it is very difficult. In my case belgian keyboard -> French is not ideal choice: + - _ = differ
Can you use loadkeys command? (loadkeys de, loadkeys fr, etc) (it reads from /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/) Does it work in rescue?
rescue system does not use YaST at all
The loadkeys command is not included in rescue, neither are the keyboard definitions : I need be-latin1 (tested from cd1 and dvd). So the keyboard is configured with F2 before choosing to start rescue image. I also have, every time I update a system, the problem that the keyboard is reset to the default corresponding to the language choosen for the installation an not the installed keyboard from installed system (SuSE 9.3). Perhaps I should open an other bug, what do you think ?
The rescue system doesn't contain loadkeys nor kbd maps. The only way is to start manual installation (use that boot option or manual=1 kernel installation option) and set the keyboard map in linuxrc. Then start the rescue system manually from linuxrc. I think we cannot improve that. I'm reassigning to Documentation component - I think that this solution should be described in the documentation (I don't know, may be that it's already there...). (Please, open a new bug report for the update problem. Thank you.)
There is no more manual installation option in boot menu. I tried boot option manual=1, this doesn't solve the problem either, best alternative choice is still the french keyboard. I found a working solution but it's a bit lengthy to get to it : start normal installation - new installation - go to export tab - change keyboard to belgian (that loads the keymap) now switch to root shell in vt2 - the keyboard is belgian (or abort installation so you get the manual installation menu and choose to boot the rescue system but that takes longer)
sorry, it is the expert tab, not the export tab
documentation issue. To be evaluated by tom
The procedure described in #5 above is so ugly and awkward, it simply can't be described in the doc. It's embarrassing and people would think we're crazy. There must be a *reasonable* way to set the keyboard prior to starting the rescue system. Please define this procedure, THEN we can talk about a paragraph in the docu desribing this procedure. Reassigning to lslezak. Please re-route if this is not correct.
Tom, see comment #4. It's possible to set a keyboard map via linuxrc. I think this is the right way how to do it.
But #5 (reporter) says that #4 doesn't work. No time for such research in the doc dep. So please: o define the procedure o verify it works o decribe it here (step 1, step 2, step 3...) Then we'll write a note of how to do it.
As Frank is in charge of the rescue stuff I reassign to him.
It works the way described in #4. The problem is that with manual installation no drivers to access the CDROM are loaded. In order to boot the rescue system from CDROM, a proper driver for the CDROM has to be installed. On most desktop computers ide-generic will probably do, but with SCSI/USB CDROMs it will get complex. Ladislav, can you please verify the procedure listed below? Especially Step 7 needs to be verified - I am not sure wether ide-generic will work in most cases and whether just loading usb-storage is enough to access an USB CDROM. 1. Boot from CD#1 or DVD 2. Press F3 3. Enter "manual="1" (beware, american keyboard) 4. Select your language 5. Choose keyboard layout 6. Select "Kernel Mudules -> Load IDE/RAID/SCSI drivers or "Load USB drivers" (if using an USB CDROM) 7. If using an IDE CDROM choose "ide-generic"; if using a SCSI CDROM choose the proper driver from the list; for an USB CDROM choose "usb-storage". Unless you are using an ISA SCSI controller it should be safe to leave the "Additional parameters" dialog blank. 8. Choose "Back" 9. Choose "Start Installation or System" -> "Start Rescue System" -> "CD"
tested with opensuse 10.1 beta 4: procedure fails at step 5. The keyboard choice is restricted to the list of default keyboards correponding to the available languages. As the Belgian keyboard is not available, manual mode is not better than choosing F2: french keyboard + starting normal rescue system. I saw also a problem at startup in manual mode : after showing "Searching for info file...", it tried to open the non existant floppy drive with all possible filesystem types (I/O error at sector 0 /dev/fd0) This delays the startup by 180 seconds
To give this alive again a bit , there is a coming issue with 11.2 We can encrypt a whole disk, so how users who don't use the "poor" choice of layout at the grub splash would be able to insert their complicated and secure password with some funny éàü[!] that they would have entered at the installation time ? They simply can't access their root session. How they can rescue their system ? What bizarre is : opensuse is the last distribution not having all keyboard map at the bootime : try a ubuntu, a slax, a type what you want. I think it perharps the time to quickly fix this. Or should I just open a new bug
Renamed bug, changed product to 11.2 and reassigned it with status new.
Hi Franck, If you need any supplemental information, test case, confirmation, just drop me a line. I will very happy to help to close this story.
. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 534856 ***