[pkg-lxqt-devel] Bug#867015: lxqt dependancy on cmst (and thus connman) broke my network

Craig Sanders cas at taz.net.au
Mon Jul 3 12:30:46 UTC 2017


Package: lxqt
Version: 15

The upgrade of lxqt today caused the forced installation of connman (via
'cmst'), which then broke both my LAN and my PPPOE ADSL connection (including
my phone service, which is VOIP only) by taking down all network interfaces
and leaving them in an unconfigured state - despite my /etc/network/interfaces
file defining my network interfaces exactly as I want them to be.

It also trashed my carefully crafted /etc/resolv.conf (replacing it with a
symlink into /run/connman/), and because my LAN was broken, several machines
and VMs hung due to NFS failures.

I thought it was just an outage at my ISP at first, but more weird networking
problems happened, and more of my machines started to hang and even dns
lookups of local hosts were timing out...causing me to look at resolv.conf and
notice that a) it had been replaced with a symlink and b) connman had been
installed.

(BTW, I don't even use eth0 or eth1 directly.  I have bridges br0 and br1 on
them for use with docker and kvm and other things)


There is no reason why lxqt (or any WM or DE) should ever depend on connman or
network-manager.  Recommends or Suggests is more than enough.

In fact, there seems to be a lot of unneccessary and problematic Depends: in
the lxqt package that should be Recommends:

Depends: cmst | network-manager-gnome, lximage-qt, lxqt-core (= 15),
         lxqt-about, lxqt-admin, lxqt-openssh-askpass, lxqt-powermanagement,
         lxqt-sudo | gksu, pavucontrol-qt | pavucontrol, qlipper, qps,
         qterminal, sddm-theme-debian-maui | sddm-theme | lightdm | gdm3 |
         lxdm | slim | nodm, xarchiver | ark | engrampa

There's no reason why lxqt should depend on a display manager. it's usable
with just startx. Dependencies on 'sddm-theme-debian-maui | sddm-theme |
lightdm | gdm3 | lxdm | slim | nodm' should be replaced with "Recommends:
x-display-manager" or similar.

GUI archive tools like 'xarchiver | ark | engrampa' can be useful, but there's
no justification for making lxqt depend on them. Fortunately, installing them
shouldn't cause any harm, but does take away people's ability to choose.

pavucontrol* should also be Recommends: - not everyone uses pulse audio, and
installing those packages and all their dependencies could break someone's
alsa config.



Depends are for things that a package can't do without.  Recommends are for
things that are very useful - or "recommended".  Suggests are for things that
are merely nice extras.

I run sid, so i'm not unfamiliar with the occasional upgrade-related problem
- bugs or version incompatibilities or whatever....but it should be possible
for me, or anyone else, to run 'apt-get dist-upgrade' without having someone
else's **personal preferences** break their system and their network.

Some packages (like archiving tools) are relatively harmless, but others (like
connman, network-manager, resolvconf) that mess with people's existing config
files, some with very complex hand-crafted configurations, will always be
dangerous and should never be forced on people.


craig

PS: I'm aware that debian's default behaviour is to treat Recommends the
same as Depends.  I'm also aware that it's trivially easy to change that,
which is why all my machines have 'APT { Install-Recommends "False";};' in
/etc/apt/apt.conf - that allows convenience for novices without removing
choice from those who want it.  Using Depends rather than Recommends
undermines that.

--
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>



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