Bug#181632: acknowledged by developer (Re: Bug#181632: xserver-xfree86: could not open default font 'fixed')
branden,
let's take a step back here.
you are a developer.
you are a debian developer.
you have been working for, i presume, several years on the
debian gnu/linux project.
you are a responsible developer.
therefore please can i respectfully ask you to treat people
who have less knowledge than you with an attitude that
relates to the responsibility that you have taken on.
the reason i ask this is that because you have more knowledge,
you are less forgiving of people who are having difficulties
with debian, due to lack of knowledge.
i love debian's packaging system.
however, by _not_ having full information i am in a unique
position of being able to advise you of discrepancies and
shortcomings that you yoursel, with full information, are
blind to.
if a very experienced programmer tells you he can't do something
and it's getting him down because he feels that getting debian
to do what he wants is a bit like pissing blind up a hill, then
surely you should consider that maybe something is wrong.
_especially_ as you say that there are other people not just myself
who have told you that they have also run into exactly the same
problem.
debian should be _easy_, not require inauguration into a
priesthood to recite sourcerous incantations in order for
businesses to get the job done.
this is the second bug in under a week that i have encountered
due to assumptions made by debian maintainers having far more
information at their fingertips than they seem to realise, and
seeming to think that it is the fault of the users that the
users are not drinking enough beer in order to piss harder and
further up the hill and to take away their eyesight.
due to alcohol poisoning.
i shouldn't _have_ to know that i have to look at the package
information for a package i don't know exists or is related
to the problem.
out of all the packages in which information is listed, it did
not occur to me to go through xserver-common's package descriptions
simply because there are _too many_ such packages for my tiny
brain to have considered it worthwhile.
i used apt-cache search xfont and it listed dozens of packages,
_one_ of which was xserver-common.
this _totally_ put me off from going through all of the package
descriptions.
it's of absolutely no use to man nor beast to have the
documentation saying "some other package won't work unless
you have this other package installed", the relationship needs
to be codified into apt-get / dpkg such that it causes a REAL
error message to be displayed on-screen and stops the install
process or asks for more input.
let me try another tack, here.
the reasons why i did not do 1) or 2) below is because
no reference in the /var/log/XFree86.0.log said that i should,
in order to resolve the problem.
you may at your own discretion dismiss this statement if you
wish, but its rather obvious ridiculousness should tell you
that something is very wrong: namely that the error messages
are totally unrelated to the problem and give absolutely
fuck-all hint as to what the solution should be.
anyway, enough of that.
by the way, i do appreciate and value very highly the fact that
debian's packaging system does not place great burdens of
dependencies on users. i spit upon rpm and its stupid
"error you didn't install these 200 packages by hand, first,
go away you stupid idiot user".
i also note your reference to the meta-package, x-window-system.
perhaps the solution is therefore to make some sort of analysis
of dependencies.
intuition leads me to suggest that it should be possible to
track the reverse dependencies back to a meta-package, then
to walk forward again and advise that the packages they are
about to install will not work unless they do these ones as
well, do you want to add these in too, yes or no?
xserver-xfree86 _definitely_ depends on xfonts-base, despite what
you think.
if xserver-xfree86 doesn't work without xfonts-base installed,
then there is a dependency!
there is no escaping that simple fact!
broke, with-out;
not-broke, with.
logical inescapable conclusion: xserver needs fonts!
... but i agree with your analysis and experience in that it is
not a DIRECT dependency.
the dependency is expressed via the meta-package, x-window-system.
therefore, whatever the dependencies that x-window-system lists
must ALSO apply to all its REAL packages.
so, even if you "jump in", as i did, into installing only
a limited subset of packages, there HAS to be some way of
saying "this might not work".
i believe you might do well to examine NT 5.0 (aka windows 2000)'s
security model.
in NT 5.0, the concept of "inheriting" ACLs was introduced, whereby
all subdirectories "inherit" Access Control Entries that have
an "inheritance" bit set on the parent ACL.
i believe that the introduction of "dependency inheritance" may
provide a framework under which this issue may be resolved.
you see, it's not that x-window-system-core depends on xserver-xfree86,
xlibmesa3, xfonts-base, xfonts-100dpi, xfonts-75dpi, xfonts-scalable,
xbase-clients and xutils.
it's that xserver-xfree86 CANNOT WORK WITHOUT those packages installed.
alternatively, the concept of "reverse-required-dependencies" needs
to be introduced.
if xserver-xfree86 does not work without x-window-system's group
of packages having been installed, then this needs to be specified.
this "reverse-required-dependencies" thing could also be extended
to list alternative "reverse-required-dependency packages", such that
at a later date, things like that meta xserver package saying
"this is actually a meta package you must install one of the
following real packages xserver-xfree86 or xserver-svga or ..."
you can also likewise say
"you are about to install the following package however it is
unlikely to work unless you install one of the following:
x-window-system; y-window-system ..." do you wish to proceed
yes or no.
if you still do not believe that there is an unresolved issue
after i have gone to the effort and trouble to write the above,
then i have no alternative but to leave you to your opinions
and attitudes.
if you have read this far and still hold to your opinions,
then i ask you to read further and perhaps not to answer but
to consider the following questions:
if you believe that xserver-xfree86 is _not_ dependent upon
xfonts-base, then why is it possible to install xserver-xfree86
at all when neither the meta package x-window-system nor
x-window-system-core nor the real package xfonts-base is
not installed?
if x-window-system is a meta-package that installs
xserver-xfree86, what is the equivalent package to
x-window-system that gets xserver-mach32 installed, or
xserver-svga installed?
l.
On Wed, Feb 19, 2003 at 02:13:12PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 19, 2003 at 07:01:49PM +0000, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> > so.
> >
> > this bug needs to be re-opened, specifically against the
> > xserver and xfonts-base package dependencies.
>
> No.
>
> > if you like i can reissue this as a separate bug.
>
> No.
>
> > the bug is:
> >
> > if you haven't installed xfonts-base and don't _know_ about
> > xfonts-base, and have no clue as to why it is needed, and it is
> > missing, how on _earth_ is anyone expected to get their xserver
> > working?
>
> Read the package descriptions, or read the FAQ.
>
> > this is an absolutely critical missing dependency.
>
> No.
>
> > no other package that i could find, after spending approximately
> > eight hours spread out across two days of doing "apt-cache
> > search" and grepping directories and files, provides the "fixed"
> > font.
>
> That's because it's an alias, usually for:
>
> -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
>
> ...which is provided by the file 6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz.
>
> ...which is in the xfonts-base package.
>
> It is interesting that, over the course of two days and eight hours, you
> did not:
>
> 1) Read the xserver-common package description:
>
> $ apt-cache show xserver-common
> Package: xserver-common
> Priority: optional
> Section: x11
> Installed-Size: 808
> Maintainer: Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org>
> Architecture: powerpc
> Source: xfree86
> Version: 4.2.1-5
> Replaces: xbase (<< 3.3.2.3a-2), xserver-vga16 (<< 3.3.2.3a-2), xserver-agx (<< 3.3.2.3a-9), xserver-mach32 (<< 3.3.2.3a-9), xserver-mach64 (<< 3.3.2.3a-9), xserver-p9000 (<< 3.3.2.3a-9), xserver-s3 (<< 3.3.2.3a-9), xserver-s3v (<< 3.3.2.3a-9), xserver-tga (<< 3.3.2.3a-9), xserver-w32 (<< 3.3.2.3a-9), xsun-utils
> Depends: debconf (>= 1.0.21), xfree86-common (>> 4.2), libc6 (>= 2.3.1-1)
> Suggests: xserver-xfree86 | xserver, xfonts-base, xfonts-100dpi | xfonts-75dpi, xfonts-scalable, configlet-frontends
> Conflicts: xbase (<< 3.3.2.3a-2), xsun-utils, xbase-clients (<< 3.3.6-1), suidmanager (<< 0.50), configlet (<= 0.9.22), xserver-3dlabs (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-8514 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-agx (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-common-v3 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-fbdev (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-i128 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-mach32 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-mach64 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-mach8 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-mono (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-p9000 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-s3 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-s3v (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-svga (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-tga (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-vga16 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-w32 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-xsun (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-xsun-mono (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-xsun24 (<< 3.3.6-35), xserver-rage128, xserver-sis
> Filename: pool/main/x/xfree86/xserver-common_4.2.1-5_powerpc.deb
> Size: 223372
> MD5sum: b921e2d414c676ffab4c281a9fb34384
> Description: files and utilities common to all X servers
> The X server is the hardware interface of the X Window System. Its job is to
> communicate with video display and input devices, and present them in a
> standardized, abstract fashion via the X protocol to X clients (X-based
> programs). The X server largely relieves programs of having to know or care
> about the details of the hardware with which they are interacting (such
> things as 32-bit versus 8-bit color, the layout of the keyboard, how many
> buttons the mouse has, etc.). The catch is that the X server must itself
> know the technical specifications of the graphics hardware and monitor, the
> keyboard layout, the protocol used by the mouse, and so forth.
> .
> X servers either need fonts installed on the local host, or need to know of a
> remote host that provides font services (with xfs, for instance). The former
> means that font packages are mandatory. The latter means that font packages
> may be gratuitous. To err on the side of caution, install at least the
> xfonts-base, xfonts-100dpi or xfonts-75dpi, and xfonts-scalable packages.
>
> 2) Read the Debian X FAQ:
>
> *) Why doesn't the X server package just depend on the xfonts-base package?
>
> (I often get this question, accompanied by rhetoric like, "1 CANT BEL1EVE U
> DONT MAKE THE SURVUR DEPEND ON THE BASE FONTZ PACKAGE BECAUSE IT ALWAYZ ALWAYZ
> ALWAYZ ALWAYZ ALWAYZ NEEDZ 1T!!11! U ARE SO STUPID 4 NOT MAKING 1T DO THAT!!1
> U ARE EVEN STUP1DUR 4 NOT DOCUMENTING WHY IT DOESNT + 4 NOT FIXING TH1Z
> CRITICAL BUG YEARZ AGO!!11!1!1!! UR SUCH A MORON NO WONDUR PEOPLE USE
> REDHAT". Seriously.)
>
> For the past several years, the xserver-common package has contained the
> following text in its package description:
>
> X servers either need fonts installed on the local host, or need to know of
> a remote host that provides font services (with xfs, for instance). The
> former means that font packages are mandatory. The latter means that font
> packages may be gratuitous. To err on the side of caution, install at least
> the xfonts-base, xfonts-100dpi or xfonts-75dpi, and xfonts-scalable
> packages.
>
> I'll also note that recent versions of the Debian XFree86 packages (upstream
> version 4.1 and later) feature the "x-window-system" metapackage which
> relieves the user from having to have a full command of the interrelationships
> between the many XFree86 binary packages. So, when you don't understand why a
> given package relationship doesn't exist (why, for instance, Debian doesn't
> force the installation of an X server along with X clients, or vice-versa), it
> may be a good idea to just install the "x-window-system" package, which will
> probably give you the files you want -- from the XFree86 packages, anyway.
>
> > and yet all xservers (xserver-xfree86; xserver-vga16;
> > xserver-mach32; xserver-svga) depend critically upon that
> > package, and the xfonts-base package is not included in the
> > dependencies.
>
> No, they don't "critically depend" on that package.
>
> The only thing that is critically lacking here is your level of
> courtesy.
>
> > either there is critical missing information, or there is
> > critical missing dependencies: either way, this is not a bug
> > that can just be ignored as "another spurious report".
>
> Another critical problem here is your failure of critical thinking. You
> have posited a false alternative. That is a logical fallacy.
>
> This bug remains closed, and I ask that you not file any more spurious
> reports on this subject, as you have threatened to.
>
> --
> G. Branden Robinson | The basic test of freedom is
> Debian GNU/Linux | perhaps less in what we are free to
> branden@debian.org | do than in what we are free not to
> http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | do. -- Eric Hoffer
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