[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#534587: debian-installer: Please set /etc/inittab to gracefully handle 8bit (UTF-8) environments

[Helge Kreutzmann]

Hello Petter,
On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 12:15:34AM +0100, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> Is this problem perhaps related to bug #547073, which was fixed by
> patching init in version 2.87dsf-7?  On which tty was this problem

I'm not sure.

> experienced?  Was it present in both tty1 and tty2?

Yes. I recently installed a bare minimum lenny (on adm64) and upgraded
to current Squeeze. There was *no* option -8 in /etc/inittab.

Again the effect occurs on both tty1 and tty2.

Entering an 8 bit character and pressing backspace deletes *two*
characters, not one, on the login prompt

Current version of sysvinit is 2.87dsf-8.1

Manually adding -8 for tty2: 8 bit characters cannot be entered,
thus problem no longer present

> If the problem still exist, I am unsure how we can reliably fix it
> both for new installations and for existing installations without
> unwanted side effects.  New installations are trivial, while fixing it
> during upgrades is harder.

I'm confused: I think it *can* be reliably fixed (and the fix is
trivial) for new installations: just ship /etc/inittab with the
option -8 for getty. 

Old installs are indeed harder. I guess adding a note about this
problem (with a reference to this bug maybe) and the way to fix it
manually is the only option. Everything else would be overkill for
this bug (both in designing and testing).

Thanks for taking care of this bug.

Greetings

              Helge

-- 
      Dr. Helge Kreutzmann                     debian at helgefjell.de
           Dipl.-Phys.                   http://www.helgefjell.de/debian.php
        64bit GNU powered                     gpg signed mail preferred
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