Bug#950926: ember: Using packages to install "snap" packages is not a correct use of the packaging system

[Jonathan Dowland]

On Sun, Feb 09, 2020 at 11:12:48PM +0100, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo wrote:
>2) These kind of methods are done for special packages like firmware,
>very popular apps like flash (at the time), etc, or *data* packages
>from games.

We have game-data-packager (gdp, which I originally wrote) for
situations like this. When you generate a .deb (as gdb does) containing
the data and install that, you get an Installed-Size which reflects the
actual disk usage of the package; you know that data is removed again
when you remove the package; you can express package inter-dependencies
properly, etc.

The ember package, at present

 • claims to have an Installed-Size of 35.8 kB but will install
   177+MiB in pre-inst
 • Does not clean that up again on package removal
 • Doesn't handle "snap install" failing, silently completes package
   installation
 • Supplies a .desktop file referencing Exec=ember but does not provide
   any ember binary (even as a route into the snap) in $PATH

It would be interesting to see whether game-data-packager could consume
data from snaps, and avoid all these pitfalls. I believe smcv was
interested in something similar for flatpaks (that might have been
installing into flatpaks, rather than consuming from them)


-- 
👱🏻	Jonathan Dowland
🔗	https://jmtd.net