Comment 139 for bug 249340

On Thu, 8 Jan 2009, mfg8876 <email address hidden> wrote:
> The problem almost certainly lies in one of the localedef subroutines and
> is not bound to the underlying kernel (I have tried both downgrading the
> belocs-locale-bin package in 8.04 and updating it on a 7.04 release to no
> avail). Since this is in the gnu c lib it is understandably not an ubuntu
> maintained code. Alas, with ubuntu being the most wide spread distro among
> desktop users (feel free to correct me on this), it receives the most user
> feedback.

Actually I *HAVE* done a trace to find the location of the problem, and I
can assure you it *IS* in the Kernel. I have 50 MB of strace to prove it.

On Sun, 11 Jan 2009 encbladexp <email address hidden> wrote:
> the Problem exists on 32-Bit Ubuntu to. I have migrated serveral Systems
> from Gutsy to Hardy, an the Bug is in all off them. It doesn't Matter if
> 32 or 64-Bit.

Indeed, the problem is with the generic part of the kernel, between certain
releases. However But localedef is run before rebooting, and so the problem
is with the OLD kernel -- the one you're migrating from, not the one you're
installing.

The resolution is to arrange to upgrade the kernel and reboot before trying
to run localedef. This could be done by either:

(1) requiring a kernel patch update as a prerequisite to doing a
    dist-upgrade; or

(2) deferring localedef until after a reboot if the currently running
    kernel is in the affected range.

I'm not a packaging expert so I don't know which of these is more feasible,
however I suspect the latter may be easier to accomplish as it wouldn't need
back-patching of the dependency lists of older releases.

-Martin

PS: this bug may also be related to https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/231746