[syslinux] keytab-lilo: update to support kbd 2.0.3 format

Ady ady-sf at hotmail.com
Mon Mar 7 16:02:25 PST 2016


> It is a "generic example" which differs from the "actual example" on Fedora. ;)
> Someone may favor wiki style, then again someone graces the source doc style.
> What is important, none of them is a redundant, that is, they complement each other.
> 
 
Patching for Fedora (or for whichever other distro) in upstream 
Syslinux should only be done when it would affect many other distros in 
the same way (i.e. relevant as a general / very popular / well known / 
thoroughly tested / wildly used / proven code).

What a Fedora package maintainer could do would be to have a patch in 
Fedora's package, changing the "default" values in the keytab-lilo.pl 
Perl script itself, according to typical Fedora's paths (e.g. there 
used to be a "$DEFAULT_PATH", in addition to the "$DEFAULT_MAP" and 
"$DEFAULT_EXT" values), in such a way that the shorter form of the 
command line would work under Fedora.

I would tend to think that it is easier to simply type in the complete 
relevant paths for each case, instead of having the script attempting 
to be "too-smart".

Instead of re-writing the original document from LILO, I decided to 
write a wiki document that adds (or complements) to the original 
information. It can be linked to from other sites / forums / irc, and 
it also includes links to the original (wikified) document. It can also 
be improved easier than the documentation included in each upstream 
release.

Based on the type of questions that are usually asked about Syslinux 
(not just in the Syslinux mailing list), many (of those) questions have 
been already answered in some document or in the wiki; yet, the 
questions are asked anyway.

I happen to know of at least one distro that actually deletes the 
keytab-lilo Perl script and its doc from its Syslinux package because 
"the same" files are included in the LILO package.

IMHO, the existence of the wiki document is enough in this case (as 
opposed to editing the original doc). Editing the original document 
should mean to actually re-write it for Syslinux with relevant and 
current info.
 
 
> > BTW, we should find some way to support changing the keyboard map for 
> > UEFI too.
> > 
> > I do not know whether the "ktl" file / method can be effectively used 
> > in UEFI. If it can, then it would be desirable for the kbdmap directive 
> > to be available for UEFI too, and it would be desirable for the 
> > kbdmap.c32 module to be improved so to support UEFI too.
> > 
> 
> You can test yourself with VirtualBox
> https://www.virtualbox.org/svn/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Devices/EFI/Firmware/OvmfPkg/README
> 
> With x64 OVMF (QEMU/KVM UEFI)
> 'kbdmap[.c32] <kbd_layout>.ktl'
> has no effect on changing the keyboard layout.
> 
> 
 
Well, yes, I already know that it has no effect under UEFI. That's the 
reason I wrote that "BTW". Let me rephrase, in case I wasn't clear 
enough: we should find some (coherent, consistent) way of supporting 
the ability to change the keyboard layout under UEFI.

Regards,
Ady.



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