Bug#915407: libpam-systemd: please add a virtual package "logind" to allow alternatives

[Felipe Sateler]

Hi,

On Sat, Dec 22, 2018 at 5:33 PM Adam Borowski <kilobyte at angband.pl> wrote:

> Hi!
> Could you please either take this patch or propose a different approach?
> I have received no feedback other than a brief unconclusive remark on IRC.
>

Sorry for the radio silence. Let's try to remedy that.


> The clock for Buster is ticking; to get any testing we'd need to act soon.
> Not only this approach has been proposed by one of systemd maintainers
> (granted, more as a brainstorming than a definitive proposal from your
> team)
> but it also has seen actual testable packages since January.
>
> I admit that my own testing was extremely uneven -- mostly restricted to
> environments I personally use -- but as the idea is opt-in for every
> depender on libpam-systemd, packages no one claims to have tested simply
> won't be usable without systemd.  Just like they're right now.
>

This is a good feature of the proposal: it requires explicit opt-in by
reverse dependencies.


>
> Thus: if package X and Y need APIs that elogind provides, they'd be changed
> to:
>     Depends: default-logind | logind
> while package Z that needs a "bring-me-pink-pony" function will not.
>

I (not speaking for the whole team), have no objection to this patch.
However, it was pointed out to me that virtual packages require policy
updates[1], first starting as a debian-devel discussion. So I'm starting
this now

The proposed virtual packages are:

logind: a org.freedesktop.login1 D-Bus API implementation
default-logind: should be provided by the distributions default logind
provider (currently pam-systemd)

Background: currently libpam-systemd provides two features currently used
by third parties: one is the necessary hooks to start the systemd
implementation of login1. The second is hooking up the systemd --user
service manager. This virtual package attempts to disentangle the two so
that packages that only require logind can use an alternative
implementation.

Adam/other elogind maintainers, please clarify/improve wording if this was
somehow inaccurate.

[1]
https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/virtual-package-names-list.txt

-- 

Saludos,
Felipe Sateler
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