Re: Bug#527920: please break circular dependency
* David Nusinow <david@gravitypulls.net> [090509 19:39]:
> Because these two packages do actually depend on each other to function.
> That's a hard dependency and there's no way around it. Ian Jackson has
> argued strenuously that circular dependencies are not a bad thing, and
> that dpkg handles them fine, and I'm in agreement with him.
While dpkg is fine, I'm not sure apt is in this very case.
(There is something strange and often xserver-xorg-video-* packages
are pulled in in strange ways, which might be because of this
circular dependency).
> That said,
> the reason why xserver-xorg was split from xserver-xorg-core was to
> separate the very large and rapidly changing server config scripts from
> the server itself, allowing us to make rapid improvements to them with
> minimal stress to ourselves and our users. Now that those scripts are
> essentially gone, it's time to start thinking earnestly about reuniting
> them as xserver-xorg, and letting -core go away.
> This is *not* the same
> thing as removing the circular dependency, which is necessary and
> correct so long as these two packages exist despite whatever buggy tools.
While I agree that circual dependencies are nothing inherently buggy
and to avoided at all costs, they are still something not done lightly.
Apart from broken tools that may have problems with them, it is simply
confusing for users, so a solution without is almost always better than
one with circular dependencies.
At least the description of xserver-xorg should be changed. It still
says:
| This package depends on the full suite of the server and drivers
| for the X.Org X server, as well as providing a configuration
| infrastructure to manage xorg.conf. It does not provide the actual
| server itself, but removing it is strongly discouraged.
This description screams with every single word "you are able to remove
this package but you do not want to unless in strange situations".
Which is simply not true unless the dependency from xserver-xorg-core
to xserver-xorg is not a bug. (And of course increases the confusion
of our users (and of the developers, reading this description I also
first thought the dependency from xserver-xorg-core to xserver-xorg
was some bug introduced by someone trying to fix some bug without
thinking)).
Hochachtungsvoll,
Bernhard R. Link
--
"Never contain programs so few bugs, as when no debugging tools are available!"
Niklaus Wirth
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