[pkg-gnupg-maint] Bug#1054985: Bug#1054985: gpg-agent: missing dependency on pinentry-curses or pinentry-gtk2

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2025-03-05 15:07:42 -0500, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
> On Sun 2023-10-29 00:20:09 +0200, in https://bugs.debian.org/1054985, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> 
> > gpg-agent needs a working pinentry program. As pinentry-gnome3
> > (installed by default) doesn't work on non-GNOME environments, it
> > should depend on pinentry-curses or pinentry-gtk2.
> 
> I'm confused by this report.  It looks to me like gpg-agent has depended
> on "pinentry-curses | pinentry" for years, well before this report was opened:
> 
> ```
> 0 dkg at bob:~$ apt-cache show gpg-agent | grep ^Depends:
> Depends: gpgconf (= 2.4.7-6), pinentry-curses | pinentry, init-system-helpers (>= 1.52), libassuan9 (>= 2.5.1), libc6 (>= 2.38), libgcrypt20 (>= 1.11.0), libgpg-error0 (>= 1.49), libnpth0t64 (>= 1.2)
> Depends: gpgconf (= 2.4.7-4), pinentry-curses | pinentry, init-system-helpers (>= 1.52), libassuan9 (>= 2.5.1), libc6 (>= 2.38), libgcrypt20 (>= 1.11.0), libgpg-error0 (>= 1.49), libnpth0t64 (>= 1.2)
> Depends: gpgconf (= 2.2.46-2), pinentry-curses | pinentry, init-system-helpers (>= 1.52), libassuan9 (>= 2.5.1), libc6 (>= 2.38), libgcrypt20 (>= 1.11.0), libgpg-error0 (>= 1.48), libnpth0t64 (>= 1.2)
> Depends: gpgconf (= 2.2.46-1+b1), pinentry-curses | pinentry, init-system-helpers (>= 1.52), libassuan9 (>= 2.5.1), libc6 (>= 2.38), libgcrypt20 (>= 1.11.0), libgpg-error0 (>= 1.48), libnpth0t64 (>= 1.2)
> 0 dkg at bob:~$ 
> ```

Hmm... Then that's probably an issue with the Debian installer,
which *forces* to install GNOME software even if one deselects
GNOME. Since pinentry-gnome3 was installed by default,
pinentry-curses was not installed as a consequence.

I did not have this issue with another machine, for which I chose
to install the minimum, then X11 manually.

> pinentry-gnome3 definitely offers a better user experience on most
> desktop systems today, including in non-gnome environments (i'm using it
> under sway on a wayland-only system).  If pinentry-gnome3 isn't working
> for you on your setup, maybe that's something to report against either
> pinentry-gnome3 or against whatever environment you're using.

This might be bug 841909 / 842015 / 842334 / 842908 / 845565 / 853066. I
use remote machines everyday (sometimes with or without X11 forwarding),
and pinentry-gnome3 is broken with such a setup. This bug has been open
since 2016, without any progress since then!

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent at vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
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