Re: Bringing Mobian closer to Debian
Hi Arnaud,
On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 01:08:01PM +0200, Arnaud Ferraris wrote:
> Hi,
>
> ==========
>
> TL;DR: We plan to import some of the Mobian packages (generic and
> device-specific tweaks) in the Debian archive; this mail's purpose is to
> start a more thorough discussion than what is possible on IRC/Matrix,
> and collect feedback and advice about the way to go.
>
> ==========
>
> As you may already know, Mobian[1] is a Debian derivative offering
> ready-to-use Debian-based images for mobile devices. We currently
> support the Pine64 PinePhone & PineTab, Purism Librem 5, Microsoft
> Surface Pro and provide experimental support for OnePlus 6/6T and the
> Pocophone F1.
Thanks for the summary. I think we have ways forward for most of
those. Maybe we should do a table on a per package basis? I can help
with that.
>
> We use packages straight from the Debian archive as much as possible,
> but also maintain a small number of packages[2] for various reasons:
> 1. packages already in Debian with a few additional patches for
> improving the user experience on mobile devices (mostly GNOME apps
> such as evince, gedit or gnome-contacts)
These should come in via upstream. For the GNOME side GTK3 is likely the
most tricky one here atm the rest is moving more and more to
upstreamable patches on the PureOS/GNOME side and will trickle into
Debian via that route (e.g. gnome-software, epiphany, ...). I'm happy to
help here sorting out what still needs more adaptive work upstream.
> 2. kernel and bootloader packages including out-of-tree patches
These sound tricky to carry in Debian especially due to kernel security support.
> 3. non-free binary firmwares
I hope we can upload these to non-free. Depending on the driver status
we can even fold them into firmare-linux-{non,}free upstream.
> 4. Mobian base metapackages (meta-mobian) and customizations
> (mobian-tweaks) [4]
I can imagine a meta package for mobian that pulls in "all you need" for
a specific device but the reset could live in mobile-tweaks…
> 5. device-specific metapackages ($device-support) and customizations
> (mobian-$device-tweaks) [5]
…that's basically why we came up with mobile-tweaks-common and
<device>-tweaks. Could you imagine anything that woukdn't fit either
into this package or into the corresponding upstream repo (like e.g. ucm
profiles)?
> Most of the Mobian developers are also members of the DebianOnMobile
> team[3], and we hope to contribute even more to Debian now that bullseye
> is being released. In order to achieve this goal, we plan on bringing
> packages from the above items #4 and #5 to the Debian archive
> (preferably in the 'main' area), and are considering several ways of
> doing so:
>
> a. merge all device-specific metapackages and tweaks into a single
> (or maybe 2) source package, making it easier to maintain and improve
> * option 1: have a single binary package per device, replacing both
> the current $device-support and mobian-$device-tweaks
> * option 2: keep generating separate metapackages and customizations,
> as we currently do in Mobian
>
> "option 1" makes the dependency chain a bit shorter, is relatively
> straighforward, but it comes with a trade-off: almost all packages would
> depend on packages outside the Debian archives (custom kernels) and/or
> non-free packages, meaning they should go into 'contrib'.
>
> "option 2" adds a dependency level and minimal complexity, but it would
> allow us to have (nearly) all mobian-$device-tweaks packages in 'main'
> and upload only device metapackages to 'contrib'.
>
> b. add Mobian generic customizations (initramfs scripts and hooks,
> systemd config files, among other things) to the source package
> holding all device-specific tweaks
>
> This would ease maintenance but is not necessarily the most logical
> approach IMHO. One important thing to consider is that, while we could
> live with device-specific packages in 'contrib', we would really prefer
> to have both meta-mobian and mobian-tweaks into 'main'.
>
> c. merge all of the above into the existing "mobile-tweaks" source
> package [6]
>
> As DebianOnMobile maintainers, we agreed a while ago that mobile-tweaks
> would mostly hold cosmetic tweaks, and not be used to significantly
> alter the system behavior. Almost a year down the road, do we want to
> keep it that way? Or can we drop all mobian-$device-tweaks packages and
> add features to the existing $device-tweaks ones?
Looking at that bug and the examples mentioned there these are mostly
things where we don't have a solution in place in Debian e.g. MM polkit
rule. I think we should push towards solving this within Debian wherever
possible and then see what's left after a couple of months. First step
could be filing the bugs and using a user tag so we can keep an
overview. Should we try that?
Cheers,
-- Guido
>
> FYI, this question was raised when I filed an ITP for mobian-tweaks[7],
> although my answer would probably be different today.
>
> ==========
>
> So basically, here's the global picture, and we'd very much like to
> read your thoughts on that matter.
>
> Thanks,
> The Mobian team
>
> ---
>
> [1] https://mobian-project.org/
> [2] https://packages.mobian-project.org/
> [3] https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DebianOnMobile
> [4] https://salsa.debian.org/Mobian-team/
> [5] https://gitlab.com/mobian1/devices
> [6] https://salsa.debian.org/DebianOnMobile-team/mobile-tweaks
> [7] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=974422#10
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