Hot to set F2 key in Live boot Media?

[Sciamannato]

Hi!Firts of all i hope thats'is the right section,I've create a thread on the Italian MX Forum but i got no response:so i try to obtain help here!Well!I just made my personal snapshot and it works very well but..but..how to set the F2 key in the live media boot option?I would like to set it just in Italian by default.In summary: how to create my snapshot with F2 set in Italian language?Thanks in advance.Ehm...sorry for my poor English but i've already difficult to speak in my language,imagine in other idiom!
Here below the test virtual machine data:

Code: Select all

inxi -Frz
System:    Host: desktop Kernel: 4.19.0-6-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.14.1 
           Distro: MX-Linux 19 
Machine:   Type: Virtualbox System: innotek product: VirtualBox v: 1.2 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Oracle model: VirtualBox v: 1.2 serial: <filter> BIOS: innotek v: VirtualBox 
           date: 12/01/2006 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: AMD A6-3650 APU with Radeon HD Graphics bits: 64 type: MCP 
           L2 cache: 2048 KiB 
           Speed: 2600 MHz min/max: N/A Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2600 2: 2600 
Graphics:  Device-1: VMware SVGA II Adapter driver: vmwgfx v: 2.15.0.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: vmware unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.6 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 82801AA AC97 Audio driver: snd_intel8x0 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-6-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet driver: e1000 
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI type: network bridge driver: piix4_smbus 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 22.38 GiB used: 5.46 GiB (24.4%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: VirtualBox model: VBOX HARDDISK size: 22.38 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 19.90 GiB used: 5.46 GiB (27.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2 
Sensors:   Message: No sensors data was found. Is sensors configured? 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list 
           1: deb http://iso.mxrepo.com/antix/buster buster main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/megasync.list 
           1: deb https://mega.nz/linux/MEGAsync/Debian_10.0/ ./
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://it.mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ buster main non-free
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
Info:      Processes: 175 Uptime: 2m Memory: 3.85 GiB used: 878.1 MiB (22.2%) Shell: bash 
           inxi: 3.0.36 

[dolphin_oracle]

whatever is in the /etc/default/locale should be the default language of the live system. So "default" on the F2 would give italian in that way.

[fehlix]

...how to set the F2 key in the live media boot option?I would like to set it just in Italian by default.In summary: how to create my snapshot with F2 set in Italian language?

With a personal snapshot, the session locale is kept. Which means the users chosen session locale will be used when login regardless of the system locale.
I'm affraid re-setting the pre-populated defaults like F2-Language or F3-Timezone, when creating a snappshot ISO is currently not prepared using MX Snapshot.
You will always get the defaults F2-Language (English US) and F3-Timezone = auto within the GFX-boot menu, when booting in (legacy) BIOS/CSM/MBR boot mode.

GFX-Boot-meni-Fn-keys.png

Those Fn-values values determine the system-language and timezone.
So in a sense your question leads to a enhancement request to have a selection during snapshot creation to pre-select the defaults like (F2-Language and F3-Timezone) and potentially keyboard. Might be someone can provide a little patch-script to adjust the iso-template, accordingly ...

[Sciamannato]

@dolphin_oracle thanks for the answer but I had already explored this option but I have not gotten a solution to my problem
@fehlix thanks for the explanation, I'm afraid I ended up in a dead end at this point!

[JayM]

Have you tried F2 to select the language and F8 to save? Or am I misunderstanding your original question?

[Sciamannato]

Have you tried F2 to select the language and F8 to save? Or am I misunderstanding your original question?

Thanks for your reply but my question is about :how to create my personal snapshot with Italian setted by default in the live boot media (well explained by fehlix in its answer).

[JayM]

I was able to, I think, get the behavior that you want. I took a personal snapshot on a USB stick, booted with it, and at F2 changed the language to Spanish (which I can understand a little even though I don't speak it, so I used that so I could still figure out the Whisker menu entries) and F8 to save. I then booted the live USB and my session came up in US English. I then logged out and in the upper-left corner changed my per-session default language and locale to Spanish (US) and logged back in. I then ran MX RemasterCC and remastered the live USB, choosing a personal remaster and including the files in /home (so it would pick up ~/.dmrc.) Now whenever I boot from that USB stick I have my personalized MX installation but in Spanish including the Live USB boot menu screen. Is that what you want, only in Italian instead of Spanish?

One caveat, which may be a bug: when I changed languages I let it rename all of the directories in home to their Spanish names, and now whenever I boot I get a message that Bluetooth can't start because it can't find ~/Downloads (as it has been renamed to Descarges.) To get around this you would probably have to create a directory called Downloads in your home directory prior to remastering. I didn't test this because I didn't want to spend the better part of another hour re-remastering my USB to see if that fixed the Bluetooth message.

[Sciamannato]

@JayM Thanks for your intervention and for the help provided to me, i'm really impressed by the availability that I am finding on this forum! Meanwhile i did another try :i've installed and personalized my MX in Virtualbox,then during the snapshotting i added the cheat code lang=it_IT (as showed in the picture)and the results is that my personal iso is in Italian but NOT includes the Live USB boot menu screen that remain in English.Now i try the method you described and i'll let you know!

[JayM]

What I did to get the boot menu to be in Spanish, selecting that language with F2 and saving my selection with F8, only applies to the individual USB stick I was using. I don't know of a way to create an iso that will have that menu be in a language other than English whenever someone burns it to a device: everyone would have to do the F2/F8 combination after burning the iso to a bootable USB. I think that's what fehlix was talking about when he said that this was actually an enhancement request.