Bug#446097: lintian: desktop files check over strict for kde packages
Sune Vuorela <reportbug@pusling.com> writes:
> Package: lintian
> Version: 1.23.34
> Severity: important
> KDE has a history of using desktop files for all sorts of things, not
> only for applications and such.
> for example kdegraphics, a fairly minor kde package, there is now around
> 10 errors and 60 warnings.
Well, the package kdegraphics produces no warnings at all. But I assume
that you actually meant the binary packages generated by the kdegraphics
source package. (It just took me a moment to figure out what you were
talking about.)
> If at least those checks could not be run for desktop files in some
> locations mostly used for kde things:
> /usr/share/services
> /usr/share/servicetypes
> /usr/share/applnk
> currently lintian generates so much output for no reasons that makes
> lintian impossible to use to check the kde packages.
I can, but I'd like to understand why KDE is generating so many invalid
desktop files. For example, the kruler applnk desktop file contains
essentially nothing at all and looks completely pointless. What is that
file actually accomplishing? Does it need to be installed? And if it's
supposed to be there, why doesn't it have the mandatory Type and Name
entries? They aren't always missing from applnk files; other packages do
provide them.
It's not clear to me that these aren't actual bugs in the desktop files
that have just gone undiagnosed because no one has checked the desktop
files against the desktop standard.
The next release of lintian will deal with X- categories and Actions keys,
which should significantly reduce the warnings that you see. Maybe you
could take a look at what's left and check with the KDE upstream and see
if the desktop standard really is wrong?
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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