Troubleshooting • Re: Impossible disk UUID?

sdm of course handles the localization for you. Without knowing what exact keyboard configuration issue you're having it'll be a bit difficult to ELI5 it. I've never had an issue with either sdm (of course!) or rpi-imager. Maybe I've just been lucky with imager?

Oh - I was referring to the line in the video, @4:54:
it will perform some last-minute configuration, including some settings that must be completed on the actual running system, such as setting the keyboard configuration and unblocking WiFi

The ELI5 part I'd love to hear is, why that has to be done on the actual running system.
There is no firmware on the Pi - we're just talking about modifying files on the SD card here - so it baffles me that this task cannot possible be done either inside the image before we burn it, or on the filesystem while it's still plugged into another device (i.e. not the runtime system).
Especially since I"m not picking anything exotic here. Standard US keyboard layout (101 key). Standard US English.

There are actually 2 reasons. The lesser reason is that sdm inherently supports burning multiple disks from a single customized IMG, each with their own customizations applied at burn time. If the disks are to be deployed in different worldwide locations, the L10n (localization) settings will be different. This means you can't set the L10n settings during customization.

Secondly, and the real reason it has to wait until boot time...In Bookworm, the keyboard-setup service changed in such a way that running it in the sdm container as part of the customization or burn process elicited an error. (don't recall the exact error however ). The proper solution for this was to push it to run during the first boot of the system, at the same time that rfkill is run to unlock WiFi, etc.

I'm curious what you perceive to be the issue with deferring the keyboard setup to the system First Boot?

1. It's unreasonably time consuming to execute all the localization steps through raspi-config. It's a several-minute exercise that I should be able to automate with a script, and execute in 5 seconds or less.
2. Makes it pretty dang difficult to set up a headless system. I have to remember what's different between the default (UK) keyboard layout and my own (such as # swapped for £), and woe is me if those characters appear in the password I want to use to ssh into the new system. (Or worse, when I tried the image for Gladys, it was - I think - AZERTY which broke multiple chars in the password I was using.)
3. While any random user might want to deploy all over the globe, I'm not doing that. It should be possible to pre-configure this stuff if the user wants to do it.

If I'm going to open a ticket anywhere, it would going to be for the official Pi Imager tool:

1. If you pre-configure a WiFi SSID that begins with dashes, it appears to fail.
2. It does not give you the option of pre-configuring static network parameters.
3. Not all of the localization choices in the tool are actually applied.

Also, it drives me nuts that they keep making the network configuration wizards smarter (but also dumber), when it was so easy to specify exactly what you wanted with dhcpcd.conf and wpa_supplicant.conf. But since that's a pointless complaint, I'll just go outside yell at kids to get off my lawn and pull their pants up.

I just tested sdm pre-configuring a WiFi that begins with a hyphen, and the .nmconnection file is properly created.

Statistics: Posted by wildbillnj1975 — Wed Jun 10, 2026 2:06 am