Hi
Le 9 novembre 2025 00:54:01 GMT+01:00, Shmerl <shtetldik+shmerl@gmail.com> a écrit :
>On Sat, 01 Nov 2025 22:06:45 +0100 Hefee wrote:
>
>
>
>*> Normally one would use virtual packages like plasma-abi-6.5 and all packages
>> would depend on that, that would solve this issue. But this virtual package
>> would need a real packages that provides this virtual package. But there is
>> not this "central package" for plasma that would be natural to ship this
>> virtual package. Okay when writing this I'm thinking, well why not create a
>> dummy plasma package without any content that simply provides the virtual
>> package without any file content. Did we already tried this one?*
>
>If that works, then sure! I always assumed that meta packages are intended to
>solve these kind of problem, but if you think virtual package is a
>better approach,
>then why not.
>
>This issue is really hindering newcomers to Debian especially, and
>adds arguments to those
>who don't recommend Debian testing to new users. Fixing it would
>really help making
>Debian testing / KDE more user friendly.
I don't buy into this particular argument since using testing will always require some level of technical knowledge at some point.
But I do agree it's an issue we need to fix for people currently using testing. We cannot let everyone break their desktop just out of inattention.
I have a WIP solution, that I *may* land for 6.6, if you're interested in the implementation you can have a look at :
- <https://salsa.debian.org/qt-kde-team/kde/plasma-version#>
- <https://salsa.debian.org/qt-kde-team/pkg-kde-tools/-/commit/fa730bf00427579d953b79cd95a1a2c5fe0a8f95>
- <https://salsa.debian.org/qt-kde-team/kde/breeze-grub/-/commit/4501b5cb0e4e7501693cd977410e9cf7d4963712>
Happy hacking,
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Aurélien
The easiest way to achieve your goal is simply to use dependencies on the meta package. For example make kde-standard dependant on Plasma Desktop packages version 6.5.0 and make Plasma Desktop packages dependant on kde-standard 6.5.0. This would prevent an installation that is missing all 6.5.0 desktop packages. You can not do this with KDE applications though because users may want to install them on a non-kde desktop. You also can not do this on minor KDE versions as only packages with changes are rebuilt.
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