Bug#726675: gnome-settings-daemon: requires systemd

Josh Triplett josh at joshtriplett.org
Thu Oct 24 03:34:03 UTC 2013


If you've encountered issues with systemd running as init, please file
them as bugs against the systemd package or systemd upstream; those
complaints have no place in a bug report against gnome-settings-daemon,
both because they're bugs in systemd (not in gnome-settings-daemon) and
because they're only bugs in systemd's service files for running as
init, not bugs in the bits gnome-settings-daemon uses.  Mentioning every
random anecdote about systemd issues in every discussion about systemd
is unhelpful and unproductive.  Filing them as bugs against systemd is
the first step towards getting them fixed.

Please note that, for now, the dependency on systemd is only present on
Linux, not on other kernels; non-Linux kernels can run
gnome-settings-daemon without the functionality systemd enables (namely
power management).  This dependency also has nothing to do with running
systemd as init, and the Debian systemd package is (sadly) heavily
patched to let logind run without systemd.

Please also see the many upstream posts like
http://www.hadess.net/2013/10/more-power-management-changes.html ,
explaining why the code in GNOME that duplicates systemd functionality
(such as logind) is being dropped in favor of systemd.  That change was
announced just over a year ago (see https://lwn.net/Articles/520892/ and
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2012-October/msg00056.html
), and more discussions and decisions like that are already being made
on an ongoing basis, resulting in significantly simpler and cleaner
GNOME code.  I'd strongly suggest taking up feature requests like these
with upstream, not with Debian; the time to deal with them is when the
upstream change is being discussed and implemented, not when it filters
into Debian.  I sincerely hope not to see Debian permanently fork GNOME
or its components; there are enough GNOME forks already (and note that
both Cinnamon and MATE are packaged).

- Josh Triplett



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