Bug#916298: steam: should depend on steam-devices

[Simon McVittie]

On Tue, 05 Feb 2019 at 20:42:44 -0500, Michael Gilbert wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 4, 2019 at 3:03 AM Simon McVittie wrote:
> > This was reduced from Depends to Recommends in 1.0.0.59-4. Michael:
> > why this change?
> 
> Recommends are installed by default by apt, so most users will get it
> installed automatically, but this also supports users that don't need
> or want it.  You could even consider it from a policy perspective,
> steam-devices is not required for the steam package to be functional.

This was certainly true when the udev rules were first introduced
to support the Steam Controller.

However, from what I've heard, more recent Steam clients are becoming
increasingly dependent on being able to synthesize input events
with uinput (for example to forward controller inputs from in-home
streaming/Steam Link, and to remap the buttons of other brands of game
controller).

I'll see whether I can get more information on how important this is.
If it's feasible to make the Steam client probe for device permissions,
and show a warning if the udev rules are missing when trying to do
something that needs them (e.g. connecting a controller or using
in-home streaming), then a Recommends is perhaps enough.

    smcv