Bug#980049: fwupd: Should fwupd specify dbus as a dependency?
I can't help but feel this needs to be rethought.
If I install the current Debian 12 via netinst and choose not to install
'standard system utilities'... a choice many people take if they prefer
to install their own set of utilities instead... and a choice which
doesn't advertise any negative connotations for unchecking it...
Then it means the debootstrap process that debian-installer did... won't
install dbus (as it's only a recommends of systemd)... and dbus won't be
installed from 'standard system utilities' either.
From this point, there are two scenarios...
If you've got recommends enabled on your system...
Installing the fwupd package will automatically try to start the fwupmgr
service and fail because the dbus package it just installed (because
dbus is a recommends of fwupd) won't automatically start and stays
inactive unless you active it or reboot. This gives you an ugly **red
error message** in the apt-get output of...
"dbus.service is not active, cannot reload."
If you've got recommends disabled on your system... (a perfectly valid
scenario, but there are haters of this!)...
Installing the fwupd package will automatically try to start the fwupmgr
service and fail because dbus isn't installed. This gives you an ugly
**red error message** in the apt-get output of...
"Failed to reload dbus.service: Unit dbus.service not found."
I know that some people just install fwupd to use the fwuptool manually
which works just fine without fwupdmgr...
But unless this package is split into two (one for the fwupmgr service,
one for fwupdtool), or unless it is reconfigured so it doesn't try to
automatically start fwupmgr... then I can't see how dbus shouldn't be
considered a depend for fwupd.
It literally can't perform one of its main functions, a function that is
automatically started, and shows an error!.. without it!
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