Changing language

[Xinzo]

Hi,
I’m trying to change the language of the WebUI and FOS.
For FOS I’ve followed this :

• https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/12118/fog-1-5-4-boot-menu-language
• https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/16460/setting-french-keyboard-on-fos

WebUI:

• https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/9107/cannot-change-language-of-management-webpage/6?_=1661424762852

I will first focus on WebUI

root@fog:~# ls /var/www/fog/management/languages/
de_DE.UTF-8  en_US.UTF-8  es_ES.UTF-8  fr_FR.UTF-8  it_IT.UTF-8  messages.pot  pt_BR.UTF-8  zh_CN.UTF-8

In my .fogsettings:

## Start of FOG Settings
## Created by the FOG Installer
## Find more information about this file in the FOG Project wiki:
##     https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=.fogsettings
## Version: 1.5.9.154
installlang='1'

Then I executed the fog installer here is what I’ve found.

Version: 1.5.9.159 Installer/Updater


* Found FOG Settings from previous install at: /opt/fog/.fogsettings

* Performing upgrade using these settings

I’ve tried to updated my FOG from 1.5.9.154 to 1.5.9.159. So the installer is in 159 (but my .fogsettings is always in 154 even after install).
So when I agree to follow my installation I have those errors :

* Skipping package: language-pack-de..........................(Does not exist)
* Skipping package: language-pack-en..........................(Does not exist)
* Skipping package: language-pack-es..........................(Does not exist)
* Skipping package: language-pack-eu..........................(Does not exist)
* Skipping package: language-pack-fr..........................(Does not exist)
* Skipping package: language-pack-pt..........................(Does not exist)
* Skipping package: language-pack-zh-hans.....................(Does not exist)

Any idea ?

[Sebastian Roth]

@Xinzo Which Linux OS and version do you use?

[Xinzo]

@sebastian-roth I’m using Debian 11 Bullseye

[Sebastian Roth]

@xinzo Let me start by asking what exactly isn’t working? If you login to the web UI and set the language to whatever you want, then logoff and login again, still getting all English? Which language do you want to see/have?

So when I agree to follow my installation I have those errors :

• Skipping package: language-pack-de…(Does not exist)

Those packages don’t exist in Debian but only in Ubuntu. As far as I know you don’t need those and can ignore the messages (not really errors I would say).

I’ve tried to updated my FOG from 1.5.9.154 to 1.5.9.159. So the installer is in 159 (but my .fogsettings is always in 154 even after install).

That would indicate the installer was not running all the way to the end because I am pretty sure it would update your .fogsettings if it runs to the end. Please post the last 5-10 lines of what you see when re-running the 1.5.9.159 installer.

[Xinzo]

@sebastian-roth

@sebastian-roth said in Changing language:

@xinzo Let me start by asking what exactly isn’t working? If you login to the web UI and set the language to whatever you want, then logoff and login again, still getting all English? Which language do you want to see/have?

Exactly, when I change my language I still have English. I’ve try to switch in German, Italian and French. I’ve cleared my browser caching, tried inPrivate but nothing happened. I would like to have the French language.

@sebastian-roth said in Changing language:

Please post the last 5-10 lines of what you see when re-running the 1.5.9.159 installer

Here we are

* Checking package: wget......................................OK
* Checking package: zlib1g....................................OK

* Configuring services

* Setting up fogproject user..................................Already exists

The account "fogproject" already exists and has been used to
log in to this server. We highly recommend you NOT use this
account as it is supposed to be a system account!

Please remove the account "fogproject" manually before running
the installer again, or set the system username yourself.

To remove the account run: userdel fogproject

To set a new service username run installer with:
username=<usernameForSystem> ./installfog.sh -y

And then I removed my fogproject user and it works ! RTFScript is the new RTFM !
Thank you

[Sebastian Roth]

@Xinzo Found some time to look into the first language issue. Seems like you need to enable the locales on Debian to make it work in the web UI as well. Run dpkg-reconfigure locales (as root) on your Linux command line and select the specific language you would like to use in the web UI - e.g. fr_FR.UTF-8 (always use the .UTF-8 one). Now restart Apache and PHP-FPM or your whole FOG server and see if you get the translated web UI.

Now about FOS: This part of FOG is not translated like the web UI is. Though from the links you posted I guess you just want to have a different keyboard layout set in the FOS debug mode. Is that right?

[Xinzo]

@sebastian-roth
As I said in my previous post. I’ve just deleted my fogprojectuser and it works well
For the FOS yes I would like an other keyboard layout. Quite hard to type password/username in the deployment task when you don’t have the same keyboard.

[Sebastian Roth]

@xinzo said in Changing language:

As I said in my previous post. I’ve just deleted my fogprojectuser and it works well

I have no idea what you mean by that. Can you explain?

[Xinzo]

@sebastian-roth
Here is the interresting part in the script.

Please remove the account "fogproject" manually before running
the installer again, or set the system username yourself.

To remove the account run: userdel fogproject

I’ve used the command : userdel fogproject
Then executed the installer ./installfog.sh
And the installation goes on

[Sebastian Roth]

@Xinzo Did you carefully read my post on how to make languages work in hte web UI?

Found some time to look into the first language issue. Seems like you need to enable the locales on Debian to make it work in the web UI as well. Run dpkg-reconfigure locales (as root) on your Linux command line and select the specific language you would like to use in the web UI - e.g. fr_FR.UTF-8 (always use the .UTF-8 one). Now restart Apache and PHP-FPM or your whole FOG server and see if you get the translated web UI.

I will look into the iPXE keyboard layout stuff soon.

[Sebastian Roth]

@Xinzo Just a quick note for your understanding. The links you posted in your initial topic post are both about changing the keyboard layout once the Linux kernel (FOS) loads. But entering username/password on a quick deploy is when iPXE is still loaded (before FOS).

I added keyboard layout setting to the latest dev-branch version of FOG just now. So please update to the latest version (1.5.9.174 or later) and make sure you have the set KEYMAP in FOG Configuration -> FOG Settings -> General Settings (e.g. to fr or de).

Be aware that iPXE only comes with simple localized keymap support. For example some special characters (e.g. §) and German Umlauts do not work. It’s not the full set of latin1 keymaps that the Linux kernel actually supports. But most special characters work and YZ are not swapped out like on the US layout. So I hope it’s still helping you when typing username and password on quick deploy.

I can’t properly test this on UEFI machines as I only have a VirtualBox test environment at hand and PXE booting doesn’t work here in UEFI mode. There were rumors about keymap being an issue on UEFI system in the iPXE forums. No idea if that is still the case.