Bug#348653: libgconf2-4: Apps dependent on gconfd-2 fail if a GNOME 1 app has been started first

[Mike Brodbelt]

Package: libgconf2-4
Version: 2.12.1-8
Severity: important

When a GNOME 1 application is started it auto starts a copy of gconfd-1
on behalf of the user who starts the app. If an application that
requires gconfd-2 is subsequently started, the presence of an already
running gconfd-1 process prevents the automatic startup of gconfd-2, and
the application fails.

Example - my desktop uses Enlightenment as a WM. Starting Evolution
after login succeeds as expected, and starts a gconfd-2 process.
However, if I start GNUCash after login, a gconfd-1 process is started,
and a subsequent attempt to start Evolution produces 3 successive error
dialog boxes. The first telle me that an error occurred accessing config
information for Evolution, the second tells me Evolution has crashed,
and the third tells me an error occurred accessing config data for
gnome_segv, which was started in response to the Evolution crash.

As the copy of gconfd-1 persists after the invoking app (GNUCash in this
case) was closed, this breaks gconfd-2 dependent applications for the
remainder of the session, or until the user manually kills gconfd-1.
Starting GNUCash after Evolution works correctly, as it is able to use
a running gconfd-2 process.

The gconfd-2 package shouls override gconfd-1 where it is installed so
that all gconf reliant apps start gconfd-2 in preference. Tagged as
important as it breaks apparently unrelated software on the system,
though it's relatively easy to work around once you realise what's
happening.

Mike


-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.15.1
Locale: LANG=en_GB, LC_CTYPE=en_GB (charmap=ISO-8859-1)

Versions of packages libgconf2-4 depends on:
ii  gconf2-common          2.12.1-8          GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libc6                  2.3.5-12          GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libglib2.0-0           2.8.5-1           The GLib library of C routines
ii  liborbit2              1:2.12.4-1        libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libxml2                2.6.23.dfsg.1-0.1 GNOME XML library
ii  zlib1g                 1:1.2.3-9         compression library - runtime

libgconf2-4 recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information