From 4cf680b854c1cfcddef8eb59bd83561661cbcbcc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Pathfinder <pathfinder@ku-it.org>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2026 19:42:30 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] ASCII-only spinner frames and output (VM locale rendered
 braille as garbage)

The braille spinner frames and the em-dash separator are multibyte
UTF-8; on the VM session they rendered as changing random letters, not
a spinner. Frames are now the classic | / - \ cycle, the separator is
':', and the two user-facing info lines that carried em-dashes are
ASCII too. Verified under LANG=C LC_ALL=C in a pty: zero non-ASCII
bytes in the entire output.
---
 lib/common.sh | 7 +++++--
 setup.sh      | 4 ++--
 2 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/common.sh b/lib/common.sh
index 554fac8..df27987 100644
--- a/lib/common.sh
+++ b/lib/common.sh
@@ -107,14 +107,17 @@ ui_quiet_run() {
     # animates independently of gum and shows real progress, not just motion.
     "$@" >>"$log" 2>&1 &
     local pid=$!
-    local frames=( '⠋' '⠙' '⠹' '⠸' '⠼' '⠴' '⠦' '⠧' '⠇' '⠏' )
+    # ASCII frames ONLY: braille/em-dash are multibyte UTF-8 and rendered as
+    # garbage letters when the session locale is not UTF-8 (VM-proven: the
+    # spinner appeared as changing random chars, not as a spinner).
+    local frames=( '|' '/' '-' '\\' )
     local f=0 cur
     while kill -0 "$pid" 2>/dev/null; do
         cur=$(sed -n "$((before+1)),\$p" "$log" 2>/dev/null \
                 | grep -E '^(Installing|Upgrading|Downgrading|Removing|Verifying|Preparing|Cleanup):' \
                 | tail -n 1 || true)
         if [[ -n "$cur" ]]; then
-            printf '\r  %s %s — %s' "${frames[$f]}" "$msg" "$cur" >&2
+            printf '\r  %s %s: %s' "${frames[$f]}" "$msg" "$cur" >&2
         else
             printf '\r  %s %s' "${frames[$f]}" "$msg" >&2
         fi
diff --git a/setup.sh b/setup.sh
index f55857c..d35e86f 100755
--- a/setup.sh
+++ b/setup.sh
@@ -220,7 +220,7 @@ if [[ -z "$SELINUX_OPT" ]]; then
     [[ "$choice" == "yes" ]] && SELINUX_DISABLED=true
     printf "\n"
     if findmnt -n -o FSTYPE / 2>/dev/null | grep -q btrfs; then
-        ok "Root filesystem is btrfs — snapshots + zstd compression will be set up."
+        ok "Root filesystem is btrfs: snapshots + zstd compression will be set up."
         BTRFS_SNAPPER=true
     else
         info "Root filesystem is not btrfs; skipping snapshot setup."
@@ -259,7 +259,7 @@ pause_if_debug
 if [[ -z "$DE" ]]; then
     step "4 Desktop environment"
     rule
-    color_gray "  Bare Fedora install — picking a DE is what gives you a graphical login."
+    color_gray "Bare Fedora install: picking a DE is what gives you a graphical login."
     choice=$(ui_choose "Desktop environment" "Select desktop environment:" \
               "None (TWM only, SDDM via TWM module)" \
               "GNOME (gdm)" "Plasma (sddm)" "XFCE (sddm)" "None (TWM only, SDDM via TWM module)")