Possible show stopper for Linux Mint in Switzerland

[justwantedtonote]

Hi,

First of all, thank you for creating such a wonderful operating system!
It is very much appreciated!

For people in Switzerland there's unfortunately a show stopper issue raising from Linux Mint setup.

Reason is that the wrong keyboard will be installed during setup.

So depending on the chosen passphrase, this will prevent people from successfully entering the hard disk encryption password or, if no hard disk encryption has been configured, the error possibly might prevent people from a successful first time login to the desktop.

There's a risk out of this that ordinary first time users will get the impression of Linux Mint itself might be useless, possibly leading to a bad reputation of the OS within Switzerland.

This is a pity as Swiss people usually are very interested in freedom of choice and thus are interested in operating systems like Linux by nature.

The problem is reproducible but also multi-layered and I'm going to try to explain what happens.

I tested with 19.3 Cinnamon setup in English, German, and French.
The problem was existing in 19.2 already as well.

Most grave issue (show-stopper)
Description:
When using keyboard detection during Linux Mint setup, the wrong keyboard layout will be installed, even if the presumed "correct" keyboard layout was auto-selected.
So upon completed installation, "English (US)" will be the installed keyboard instead of a Swiss German or -French keyboard layout.

Proposed solution:
Depending on the setup language, make sure "German (Switzerland)" resp. "French (Switzerland)" will be installed instead of "English (US)".

Annoying/confusing -> leading to show-stopper
Description:
If you want to set your keyboard language on your own during Linux Mint setup, it's difficult to find the right entry.

For example, during the keyboard layout setup, one will find "German" and "German (Austria)".
Swiss German users naturally would look for a "German (Switzerland)" here, but there is no entry like this.

Same goes for the French part of Switzerland.
While there's various entries for French keyboard layouts ("French", "French (Canada)", and so on), there's no entry like "French (Switzerland)". - Why?

Instead of following the above language standard of LANGUAGE (COUNTRY), the Mint setup combines all Swiss keyboard layouts in a separate section "Switzerland".
The problem is people won't look for such a section, especially if it's not translated into the correct setup language (it's "Switzerland" instead of "Schweiz" for a German or "Suisse" for a French setup).

This is confusing.
People struggle to navigate to their keyboard language on their own and thus most likely will choose to detect the keyboard (which, as written above, then will result in a wrongly installed keyboard layout).

Proposed solution (quick fix):
Translate the entry "Switzerland" within the respective setup language ("Schweiz" for the German, "Suisse" for the French setup).
Like this, people at least will be able to find the correct keyboard on their own by using their first language instead of English.

Proposed solution (right way in my opinion):
Harmonize the nomenclature for Swiss keyboards to match the standard already used for setting up keyboards for other multilingual countries (i.e. English-, German-, French-ones. -> LANGUAGE (COUNTRY) )

Maybe possible steps to solve the issue:

1. Create two new keyboard layout sections: "German (Switzerland)" and "French (Switzerland)"

2. Accordingly distribute the keyboard layouts residing within the now existing section "Switzerland" to the above two new sections.

3. Remove the section "Switzerland".

Additional information on Swiss keyboard layouts

Wikipedia article on how the Swiss German/Swiss French keyboard layout should behave:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTZ#Switzerland_(German,_French,_Italian,_Romansh),_Liechtenstein,_Luxembourg

If there's anything else I can help with specific knowledge please let me know.

Again, thank you for such a great operating system and best regards!

[xenopeek]

Have you tried Linux Mint 20 installer? Not that I'm aware Linux Mint 20 specifically included anything related to this issue but as the installer (ubiquity) and the keyboard layouts all come from upstream, which have had 2 years of development since Linux Mint 19.x, it would be welcome to have confirmation on how the situation is for Linux Mint 20. If the issue is unchanged could you please also test it with Ubuntu 20.04, to confirm whether this is something Linux Mint does wrong or it comes from upstream.

[justwantedtonote]

Thank you for your reply and sorry for my late reaction to it.

It took some time to run the various setup possibilities and after running them I got confused by the results, so I started the test all over again to double check.

I downloaded the .iso for both, Linux Mint (linuxmint-20-cinnamon-64bit.iso) and Ubuntu (ubuntu-20.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso).

I ran the tests under the assumption that a user would believe the setup had chosen the right keyboard setup by using auto detection.

Summary

Linux Mint 20.0 Cinnamon
For Swiss German users Linux Mint 20.0 Cinnamon now seems to do it all right. - Thank you very much for that!

For the French setup however, the wrong keyboard ("German (Switzerland)") will be detected/installed during setup.
As a result, both, password for harddisk encryption and user login might fail for the user depending on the characters chosen.

Ubuntu 20.04.1
When it comes to Ubuntu 20.04.1, it seems like the "English (US)" keyboard still will be used through the whole setup process.

This means when using auto detection for keyboard, both, password for harddisk encryption and user login might fail for the user depending on the characters chosen.
So it doesn't matter whether a Swiss German or a Swiss French keyboard layout would be needed.
Other languages probably are impacted as well.

When checking the installed keyboard upon completed installation, it is however set to "German (Switzerland)".
While this is correct for Swiss German users, it again is not for Swiss French users.

So for Ubuntu, several possibilities to "wrongly" enter passwords still seem to remain.

Note to proposed solution from my initial bug report

I still think it would be a good idea to create dedicated language sections as described under "Proposed solution (right way in my opinion)".

As an addition to the improved auto detection, this would enable a user to more easily manually chose a desired keyboard.

Entries within the respective language group would look something like this:

German
German (Austria)
German (Switzerland)

and

French
French (Canada)
French (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
French (Guinea)
French (Togo)
French (Switzerland)

In case you would decide to go this route, feel free to let me know to help with translations if any are needed.
I guess I can work myself into this with some little initial directions.

Test Records

From here you can find the detailed records of the setup procedures.

Test 1
OS:
Linux Mint 20.0 Cinnamon
Setup parameters:
Setup language set to German
Keyboard detection used

Result of detection:
Keyboard detected: "Schweiz" - "Schweiz"
Keyboard correct within the test field (keys "äöü" typed)?
-> correct

Setup portion "Where are you?":
Type keys "z" and "ö" to check layout
-> correct
Proceed setup with location "Zurich"

Setup portion "Who are you?":
Verify keyboard layout by typing the following keys within the "Your Name" field:
"$yzö234"
-> correct
"René1987z"
-> correct

Check keyboard layout after installation. Keyboard installed: "Deutsch (Schweiz)"
-> correct

Conclusion: Linux Mint 20.0 Cinnamon does it all right for Swiss German users.

Test 2
OS:
Linux Mint 20.0 Cinnamon
Setup parameters:
Setup language set to French
Keyboard detection used

Result of detection:
Keyboard detected: "Suisse - Suisse"
Keyboard correct within the test field (keys "äöü" typed)?
-> incorrect (äöü will be displayed instead of àéè)

Setup portion "Where are you?":
Type keys "z" and "ö" to check layout
-> incorrect, "z" and "ö" are displayed instead of "z" and "é"
Proceed setup with location "Zurich"

Setup portion "Who are you?":
Verify keyboard layout by typing the following keys within the "Your Name" field:
"$yzö234"
-> incorrect "$yzö234" displayed instead of "$yzé234"
"René1987z"
-> incorrect "Renö1987z" displayed instead of "René1987z"

Check keyboard layout after installation. Keyboard installed: "Allemand (Suisse)"
-> incorrect

Conclusion:
For the French setup, the wrong keyboard ("German (Switzerland)") will be detected/installed during setup.
When using auto detection for keyboard, both, password for harddisk encryption and user login might fail for the user depending on the characters chosen.

Test 3
OS:
Ubuntu 20.04.1
Setup parameters:
"Minimal installation"
"Download updates while installing Ubuntu" unckecked.
Setup language set to German
Keyboard detection used

Result of detection:
Keyboard detected: "Switzerland" - "Switzerland" *
Keyboard correct within the test field (keys "äöü" typed)?
-> correct

Setup portion "Where are you?":
Type keys "z" and "ö" to check layout
-> incorrect "y" and ";" are displayed instead of "z" and "ö"
Proceed setup with location "Zurich"

Setup portion "Who are you?":
Verify keyboard layout by typing the following keys within the "Your Name" field:
"$yzö234"
-> incorrect "\zy;234" displayed instead of "$yzö234"
"René1987z"
-> incorrect "Ren;1987y" displayed instead of "René1987z"

Check keyboard layout after installation. Keyboard installed: "Deutsch (Schweiz)"
-> correct

Conclusion:
As for Ubuntu, it looks like the "English (US)" keyboard will be used through the whole setup process.
When using auto detection for keyboard, both, password for harddisk encryption and user login might fail for the user depending on the characters chosen.
After login, keyboard "German (Switzerland)" will be installed wich would be correct.
Still, the problem of "wrongly" entered passwords remains.

Test 4
OS:
Ubuntu 20.04.1
Setup parameters:
"Minimal installation"
"Download updates while installing Ubuntu" unckecked.
Setup language set to French
Keyboard detection used

Result of detection:
Keyboard detected: "Switzerland" - "Switzerland"
Keyboard correct within the test field (keys "äöü" typed)?
-> incorrect (äöü will be displayed instead of àéè)

Setup portion "Where are you?":
Type keys "z" and "ö" to check layout
-> incorrect "y" and ";" are displayed instead of "z" and "ö"
Proceed setup with location "Zurich"

Setup portion "Who are you?":
Verify keyboard layout by typing the following keys within the "Your Name" field:
"$yzö234"
-> incorrect "\zy;234" displayed instead of "$yzö234"
"René1987z"
-> incorrect "Ren;1987y" instead of "René1987z"

Check keyboard layout after installation. Keyboard installed: "Allemand (Suisse)"
-> incorrect

Conclusion:
As for Ubuntu, it looks like the "English (US)" keyboard will be used through the whole setup process.
When using auto detection for keyboard, both, password for harddisk encryption and user login might fail for the user depending on the characters chosen.
After login, keyboard "German (Switzerland)" will be installed instead of "French (Switzerland)".
Several possibilities to "wrongly" enter passwords remain.