Bug#645656: gnome-core: please re-soften the network-manager-gnome dependency

[Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe]

On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 08:39:22PM +0200, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> Le lundi 17 octobre 2011 à 17:54 +0200, Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe a
> > 	gnome recommends network-manager-gnome
> > to 
> > 	gnome-core depends network-manager-gnome
> NetworkManager is now a part of the core GNOME modules as published
> upstream, so we are only following this move.

Since you left the bug open, I still have a spark of hope there is some
room for discussion :) And I hope for other users to jump in and express
their seconds.

I understand your point about following upstream wrt. integration of
NetworkManager. Unfortunately, this effectively disables all of Debian's
alternatives for managing network interfaces. I'm sure this is fine for
the average user, but it denies the - well, more experienced user from
chosing alternatives.
I'm not exactly sure about the benefits of a hard depends over a soft
recommends here - especially now where apt and aptitude default to
automatically pulling recommends. Due to this I believe there is no
difference for the average user in this situation, but switching back to
recommends would leave others a choice.

Just to draw the whole picture a bit more detailed...
network-manager-gnome pulls network-manager which pulls dialup-stuff
never needed on workstations, and wireless stuff - also never needed on
workstations. Of course, a few packages more or less don't really matter
on a machine where Gnome ist installed. But those are packages I have to
care about because they try to care about me.
Some of that stuff I can get rid of - at the price of a bunch of
unresolved recommends instead of just one before and at the price of
a bunch of warnings in syslog at each boot. Some of that stuff I can't
get rid of. Of course, I can build a dummy network-manager-gnome package
to get rid of the rest as well, but I wish I wouldn't have to.
NetworkManager modifies my network/interfaces effectively taking over
control of network interfaces from ifupdown without my knowledge and
without my notice. Of course, this isn't your fault and I should address
that to network-manager. It's just part of the whole picture. (aside
from me being quite sure, the network-manager maintainer will tell me
this way is best for the average user and I can revert it if I want to)


Thanks for your work, thanks for not closing the bug immediately, sorry
for the long reply and best regards
   Mario
-- 
Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule.
                                -- Plant Manager, Delphi Corporation
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