Bug#830661: Please make xvfb depend on xauth, because the xvfb-run command needs it.
Package: xvfb
Hi,
The xvfb-run command will always fail when xauth is not installed. However,
the xvfb package does not depend on xauth, but only recommends it.
As a consequence, in environments where Recommends are not installed by
default, such as buildds, the xvfb-run command can fail and cause builds to
fail. At least one build system conditionnaly runs xvfb-run if it is present,
in order to accomodate for both the package that build-depend and don't
build-depend on it. But on unclean buildds where xvfb-run is installed without
xauth, this can cause build failures, for example <https://bugs.debian.org/830266>.
I know that in the past it was already asked and refused to guarantee the
presence of xauth by Depending on the package providing it (#419581), but in
the meantime, this package (xbase-clients) was split, and the new package
providing xauth (called xauth itself) is really small. It Depends on libx11-6,
libxau6, libxext6 and libxmuu1, of which only libxmuu1 is not installed
directly or indirectly by xvfb. Installing xauth increases the size of the
system by 152 kB, to be compared with the 22 MB that were required to install
xvfb.
Altogether, can you make xvfb Depend on xauth, so that the users of xvfb-run
can rely on the fact that if it is installed, it will not fail? Not doing so
means that any script running xvfb-run must also test that xauth is present.
Have a nice Sunday,
Charles
--
Charles Plessy
Debian Med packaging team,
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
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