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Bug#762116: marked as done (general: Some packages depend on a particular init system)

Your message dated Thu, 18 Sep 2014 18:10:09 +0200
with message-id <201409181810.10540.holger@layer-acht.org>
and subject line Re: Bug#762116: general: Some packages depend on a particular init system
has caused the Debian Bug report #762116,
regarding general: Some packages depend on a particular init system
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
762116: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=762116
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: general
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

This bug applies to many desktop applications, and runs counter to Debian's
goals of supporting multiple init systems.  I classified this bug as
normal, but I think consideration should be given to classifying it as
serious.

An example:

'apt-get --no-install-recommends install brasero'

gives me:

The following extra packages will be installed:
  gvfs gvfs-daemons gvfs-libs libpam-systemd libudisks2-0 systemd systemd-sysv
  udisks2
Suggested packages:
  vcdimager libdvdcss2 tracker gvfs-backends systemd-ui reiserfsprogs
  exfat-utils mdadm
Recommended packages:
  policykit-1-gnome policykit-1
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  sysvinit-core
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  brasero gvfs gvfs-daemons gvfs-libs libpam-systemd libudisks2-0 systemd
  systemd-sysv udisks2
0 upgraded, 9 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/3,413 kB of archives.
After this operation, 11.0 MB of additional disk space will be used.

So installing a cd-burning application triggers a change of my init system.
I know about systemd-shim, and I'll talk about that in a minute.

As I understand it, brasero uses gvfs as its method of detecting removable
media.  gvfs depends on gvfs-daemons, which depends on udisks2, which 
depends on libpam-systemd, which depends on systemd-sysv.

Each of those dependencies may be valid (I really don't know).  The end 
result, though, is somewhat nonsensical.  A cd-burning application
depends on a particular init system -- even though that init system does not
contain any functionality that the cd-burning application cannot do without.

I suspect the culprit here is packages which perform a broad array of
functions, rather than doing one thing and doing it well.  So brasero needs
X functionality, which can be found in package W.  Package W also provides 
Y functionality, which depends on systemd-sysv.  So therefore brasero depends 
on systemd-sysv, even though it doesn't *need* it.

This kind of entanglement is going to make it very hard for Debian to 
sincerely support multiple init systems.

Since I know there is a thing called systemd-shim (no thanks to apt, in
this case), I can install systemd-shim prior to the apt-get command shown
above, and then my init system will not be changed on me.  But is 
systemd-shim really the solution we need to the problem above?  I certainly
appreciate the developers' work, but it seems that the problem systemd-shim
solves could be better addressed a little closer to the root.  And the root,
I think, is single packages which provide multiple (and possibly unrelated)
functionality.  Without fixing the root of the problem, Debian's goal of
supporting multiple init systems depends entirely on the success of the
systemd-shim team.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.14-2-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Hi Rob,

On Donnerstag, 18. September 2014, Rob Owens wrote:
> This bug applies to many desktop applications

So file it there, or rather please don't. Better send patches. Really. 
Upstream has decided to go this way / these ways, the best way to persuede 
them into another direction also, is by providing code.

I'm closing this bug because this ain't a general bug in Debian. Some packages 
depend on Gnome too (or KDE or some obscure OCAML library) and it's no secret 
mean conspirancy that they do so, but rather relying on some feature 
somewhere. Aka: "business as usual".

Please direct your energy elsewhere than into useless bug filing. Code changes 
the world.


cheers,
	Holger

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