Keyboard layout: switching from Amharic <> US

[James]

On 9 Feb 2008, at 13:04, Simon Schampijer wrote:
>> How should I have left the virtual console to return to the Sugar  
>> GUI?
>
> sugar runs on the third virtual console.
> ctrl+alt+F3 (F3 is the home-key)

Hi Simon,

Thanks for helping me out with this.  I'm learning more about the  
innards of the XO than I'd hoped I'd ever need to!

>> I exited from the root account, then rebooted the machine.  It is  
>> now most unhappy...
>> What should I do now?
>
> I tried the steps you took on a ship.2 build (653). I think you run  
> a similar build...

I believe that my XO is running build 653 too.
>
> - modified /home/olpc/.i18n and /etc/sysconfig/keyboard like here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ethiopian_Setup
> - change home/olpc/.i18n back to US and rebooted
> - this works - even if I put non-existant languages in i18n

This reminds me of the joke "How many software developers does it take  
to change a lightbulb?" Answer: "None.  We've got a light bulb with  
identical specifications here, and it runs perfectly."

:-)

> After the X-server tries to start in a loop it then waits for 5  
> minutes. This is the time you have to fix up things :). Switch to  
> another virtual console. (ctrl+alt+F2) and check that the files you  
> modified are right (i18n and the keyboard one). My keyboard one  
> still contain the amharic info but does not break on that - maybe  
> you have an even earlier build or some other corrupted file?

The first time I entered the second virtual console, it gave me some  
potentially helpful information.  Here's my reconstruction of my  
actions and the screen display:

$ su root <Enter>
pwd
/root
[ 156.037074 JFFSZ notice: (667) check_node_data: wrong data CRC in  
data node at 0x2f103e0: read 0x91aefb47, calculated 0x7d0d4947

+ 3 more such notices

This smells of corruption to me.

I have now got the two files (/home/olpc/.i18n and /etc/sysconfig/ 
keyboard) back to their original state, but the boot problem  
persists.  It looks as if it was coincidental that the problem  
occurred after editing the /home/olpc/.i18n.

> Hope you get it back working

It looks like I'm going to have to re-install the system.  Or is there  
something else you think I could try?

James