Bug#1136475: Bug:1136475: bumblebee uses pidof but does not depend on procps

[Gioele Barabucci]

Control: tags -1 patch

On Thu, 14 May 2026 01:25:29 +0200 Gioele Barabucci <gioele at debian.org> 
wrote:
> it appears that bumblebee uses `pidof` in its testsuite, or that
> at least one of its binary packages uses `pidof` at runtime.
> Historically, `pidof` was provided by the Essential package
> `sysvinit-tools`, making an explicit dependency unnecessary. However
> `pidof` will soon be moved to `procps` and will no longer be part of
> the Essential set.
> 
> Please add an explicit dependency on `procps`:
> 
> * via the `Depends:` field of all binary packages of bumblebee
>   that use `pidof` at runtime;
> * via the `Build-Depends:` field of bumblebee, if `pidof` is
>   used in tests run at build-time;
> * via the `Depends:` field of `debian/control/tests`, if `pidof` is
>   used in autopkgtests.
> 
> To prevent any disruption for users of bumblebee, please add
> this dependency now, before `pidof` is moved from `sysvinit-utils` to
> `procps`. Alternatively, you could remove all uses of `pidof`.
> 
> It is believed that bumblebee uses `pidof` due to the following
> code snippets:
> 
> ```
> path: bumblebee_3.2.1-32/scripts/bumblebee-bugreport.in
> header "Process information info"
> PIDS=$(pidof $(which X Xorg bumblebeed bumblebee optirun optirun32 optirun64 2>/dev/null))
> [ -n "$PIDS" ] && ps uww --pid "$PIDS"
> ```
Dear bumblebee maintainers,

`/usr/bin/bumblebee-bugreport` uses `pidof` to find the PID of certain
processes that are relevant for troubleshooting.

Given that this is the only use of `pidof` in bumblebee, it seems
reasonable to add `procps` to the Recommends: field.

Such a fix for this issue can be found in the MR at 
<https://salsa.debian.org/nvidia-team/bumblebee/-/merge_requests/7>.

Regards,

-- 
Gioele Barabucci