Bug#704914: glx-alternatives: The libGL diversion does not work

[Christian Weeks]

Source: glx-alternatives
Version: 0.2.90
Severity: grave
Justification: renders package unusable

There is a severe problem with the libGL diversion strategy as exists at
present.

The desktop is rendered inoperable after any change in the packaging, due to
the diversion in glx-diversions
being replaced by the actual lib from libgl1-mesa-glx. This is because gnome-
session-bin and other "current"
parts of the gnome desktop have a hardcoded dependency on libgl1-mesa-glx (or
the virtual libgl1).

This means the gnome desktop in 3.8 is NOT co-installable with nvidia graphics
drivers, a situation this
diversion was meant to prevent.

The only fix is to re-run "update-alternatives --configure glx", which re-
replaces the symlink diversion
however, if gnome is about to progress beyond experimental, it is likely this
is about to become a critical
pain point.

I read bug 389971, on the reasons the nvidia-glx* packages don't directly
provide libgl1, but it may be
that unless the gnome team changes their libgl deps, this might be the only
solution (or, alternatively,
making the glx-alternatives packages provide libgl1?)

It should be noted, that the nvidia alternative clearly *works*, however,
making it so is pretty challenging.

Info on my system as it stands at present:
# dpkg --search /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGL.so.1
diversion by glx-diversions from: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGL.so.1
diversion by glx-diversions to: /usr/lib/mesa-diverted/x86_64-linux-
gnu/libGL.so.1
libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGL.so.1

# dpkg --remove libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64
dpkg: dependency problems prevent removal of libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64:
 gnome-session-bin depends on libgl1-mesa-glx | libgl1; however:
  Package libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 is to be removed.
  Package libgl1 is not installed.
  Package libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 which provides libgl1 is to be removed.
 libvisual-0.4-plugins:amd64 depends on libgl1-mesa-glx | libgl1; however:
  Package libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 is to be removed.
  Package libgl1 is not installed.
  Package libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 which provides libgl1 is to be removed.
 libglew1.7:amd64 depends on libgl1-mesa-glx | libgl1; however:
  Package libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 is to be removed.
  Package libgl1 is not installed.
  Package libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 which provides libgl1 is to be removed.
 enblend depends on libgl1-mesa-glx | libgl1; however:
  Package libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 is to be removed.
  Package libgl1 is not installed.
  Package libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 which provides libgl1 is to be removed.
 mplayer depends on libgl1-mesa-glx | libgl1; however:
  Package libgl1-me
dpkg: error processing libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 (--remove):
 dependency problems - not removing
Errors were encountered while processing:
 libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64

Thanks
Christian



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (501, 'unstable'), (499, 'testing'), (399, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.8-trunk-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash