Greetings!
On Thu, 2019-04-04 at 14:46 +0100, Brad Rogers wrote:
> To add to what Curt and Reco have said: Running Synaptic using a
> Wayland/Gnome combo,by clicking on an icon, it doesn't start. Not very
> helpful, I think you'll agree. Especially for software that's aimed
> squarely at GUI users. Started from a shell an error is, however,
> reported. It's unfortunate that, as yet, a remedy has not been
> forthcoming.
Thanks for your input, and Curt and Reco as well.
I'm not a big user of Synaptic myself, although sometimes it's easier to
mark several packages and not worry about dependencies, instead of going through
all the trouble of making several apt searches in command line.
\begin{rant}
That being said, my *main* beef with Synaptic being out of Buster is an
entirely different matter. I would not object to removing it from the release,
*if* a viable alternative was available with at least the same level of
functionality, which does *not* seem to be the case.
What is even worse, though, is the attitude of some people about that. I
asked the same question I asked in my previous email in #debian-next yesterday,
only to leave the channel before the flamewar became full fledged. I was
"gently" reminded by certain people there of why, in the end, I have never gone
all the way into trying to become a DM or a DD. Synaptic, which provides a very
useful functionality to a large number of users, was unapologetically removed
from the release because it does not work with the "default" installation. Which
is understandable, but also extreme. If someone happens to *not* use the default
installation, be it by not using Gnome, or not using Wayland, they are kept from
updating an important piece of their maintenance toolkit. And that's
inexcusable, especially when all they can say about it is "maintainer didn't do
his job" or "if you want this fixed, do it yourself".
Well, no. Being a free software user or even a Debian enthusiast does
not make me a specialist in packaging, or in Synaptic internals, or Wayland
internals for that matter. When someone who claims to be a Debian Developer or
Maintainer or whatever, who is in a position of being responsible for ensuring
that the release is as good as it can be, excuses themselves from fixing a
Release Critical bug just because "they have better things to do", they are not
doing a very good job. And, to be quite honest, I don't think they should be in
that position.
Sadly, it's an attitude that I have encountered more often than not when
trying to dialogue with people involved in Debian (or in Gnome, by the way). And
that's just very sad.
\end{rant}
Have a good day, gentlemen.
Francisco
--
[]'s,
Francisco M Neto
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