Bug 1182562

Summary:	Text interface broken for non-latin languages
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7	Reporter:	Martin Kolman <mkolman>
Component:	anaconda	Assignee:	Martin Kolman <mkolman>
Status:	CLOSED ERRATA	QA Contact:	Release Test Team <release-test-team-automation>
Severity:	high	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	7.2	CC:	awilliam, Frodox, jstodola, mkolman, mkovarik, sbueno
Target Milestone:	rc
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:	anaconda-21.48.22.23-1	Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2015-11-19 09:51:45 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:	1220812, 1242571
Bug Blocks:

Description Martin Kolman 2015-01-15 13:08:42 UTC

Description of problem:
The Anaconda text interface shows only white rectangles for languages that use a non-latin alphabet and that have translations.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
RHEL 7.0 GA and 7.1 beta

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. start a RHEL7 (.0 or 1.) installation
2. append to the boot options: lang=ja_JP text
3. see how the TUI looks like

Actual results:
All translated text in a non-latin alphabet looks like white rectangles.

Expected results:
All translated text in a non-latin alphabet is readable.

Additional info:
This also manifests in Initial Setup as it uses the same TUI faramework as Anaconda and the white rectangles also show up when reading logs with less on a tty during the installation if the log contains strings with non-latin characters.

Comment 2 Michal Sekletar 2015-01-19 09:22:42 UTC

Here is sort of similar bug report stating that installer TUI is borked when keymap=cz is put on kernel command line.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1181581

Comment 3 Martin Kolman 2015-05-12 14:02:13 UTC

This depends on bug 1220812 being fixed.

Comment 4 Martin Kolman 2015-07-23 15:07:32 UTC

Anaconda now uses data from langtable to detect if the Linux console can display the currently selected language.

If the language can be correctly displayed it also makes sure the correct font is used (again based on langtable data).

If the language can't be displayed it falls back to English.

This should get rid of all the issues with white rectangles instead of text - the users should now always get readable text - either in the selected language or in English.

Comment 6 Michal Kovarik 2015-08-27 14:03:56 UTC

Verified on anaconda-21.48.22.35-1.el7.

Comment 7 errata-xmlrpc 2015-11-19 09:51:45 UTC

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2015-2284.html

Comment 8 Adam Williamson 2016-12-15 23:44:29 UTC

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1405240 is the logical follow-up to this - configure the appropriate console font for the *installed system* as well as using it during install - which for some reason I never thought of at the time, and only just noticed still isn't implemented (so after doing a Russian install, if you go to a console in the installed system and try to read or type any Russian text, all you get is blobs).