Bug#981515: kcoreaddons: please replace fam with gamin
On Fri, Mar 05, 2021 at 05:12:17PM +0100, Pino Toscano wrote:
> Personally, I'd argue that switching the FAM implementation across the
> distribution _is_ a "transition", and as such it ought to have been
> requested (if not even started) two months ago.
In July 2020, #966273 was filed: RFA: fam -- File Alteration Monitor
I posted in October 2020 on that bug where FAM was abandoned.
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=966273#15
Debian developers did not suggest "next steps" for over 3 months,
until the freeze occurred.
The bug was not touched by a Debian Developer until 31 Jan 2021.
All this reflects poorly on Debian Developers, who we all understand
are volunteers. I am not questioning the skills of Debian Developers.
I am criticizing the execution. The failure to triage bugs in a
timely fashion, the failure to encourage outside contributions, and
the failure to recruit and nurture additional help all reflect poorly
on Debian as a project, as does the 12+ year old bug which is being
deferred, yet again.
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=510368
The solution is to remove FAM. It just FUD that is delaying action.
(It is FUD hiding behind policy, since FAM package removal was a
blocking bug for Bullseye.)
Back on topic:
If you take a moment to look in the kcoreaddons code, you can see that
kcoreaddons has multiple mechanisms for filesystem notification.
If FAM interfaces fail for any reason, kcoreaddons switches to an
alternative mechanism.
https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/kcoreaddons/-/blob/master/src/lib/io/kdirwatch.cpp#L1611
Therefore, your FUD is unsubstantiated. Changing kcoreaddons to use
gamin, or to not use FAM or gamin, are both reasonable options.
As I posted in
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=981515#49
gamin can be configured to poll NFS locations and so is a reasonable
substitution for FAM, not limited to inotify() as Sune suggested in
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=981515#39
It is true that this relatively safe change is being requested during
the soft freeze and so should be scrutinized. However, that does not
make the requested change any more or less dangerous. It does mean
less time to test by people who, in your own words, might not be using
this feature:
> and these FAM/gamin bits do not get much of use these days
I posit that the code in upstream kcoreaddons is already better tested
than would be Debian "testing" (existence in tree?) of an additional
month or two or three of the Debian kcoreaddons package configured to
use gamin (or to use neither FAM nor gamin).
With that, I've said my piece. I shall not argue further.
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