[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#1011130: libpipewire-0.3-0: should not recommend pipewire

[Sebastian Ramacher]

Control: severity -1 normal

On 2022-05-17 13:20:30, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> Package: libpipewire-0.3-0
> Version: 0.3.51-1
> Severity: critical
> Justification: breaks unrelated software
> 
> Several packages depend on libpipewire-0.3-0 in order to have
> pipewire *support* (but they don't need pipewire: the user may
> want to use pulseaudio). However, libpipewire-0.3-0 currently
> has "Recommends: pipewire [...]", which means that the pipewire
> package is installed as a consequence, which runs the pipewire
> server automatically.
> 
> FYI, xdg-desktop-portal depends on libpipewire-0.3-0, and
> xdg-desktop-portal is automatically installed via dependencies
> from packages like atril (a document viewer), gnucash and
> viking.
> 
> Until now, this did not seem to have any major drawback (except
> that having a useless server running, just because that one wants
> pacakges like atril, gnucash or viking). But now that vlc has
> pipewire support in its plugins recommended by default, this
> breaks VLC when one just wants to use pulseaudio. Worse, this
> also breaks ogg123, with apparently ***no way of going back***
> (I suspect that the use of pipewire changed something in the
> configuration), unlike VLC.

There are plenty of ways to go back:
* uninstall the pipewire package
* disable the pipewire service

Also vlc still just works with pulseaudio.

Please stop using RC severities for your crusade against pipewire.

Cheers

> 
> Packages that need the pipewire server (instead of only pipewire
> support) could just depend on (or recommend) the pipewire package
> directly. Users who want the pipewire server can install the
> package directly.
> 
> Note that usually, libraries do not depend on packages providing
> daemons.
> 
> So, in short:
>   * The "Recommends: pipewire [...]" is useless.
>   * It breaks other software, even not written with pipewire in mind.
> 
> -- System Information:
> Debian Release: bookworm/sid
>   APT prefers unstable-debug
>   APT policy: (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
> Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
> 
> Kernel: Linux 5.17.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
> Kernel taint flags: TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE, TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
> Locale: LANG=POSIX, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
> Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
> Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
> LSM: AppArmor: enabled
> 
> Versions of packages libpipewire-0.3-0 depends on:
> ii  libc6               2.33-7
> ii  libspa-0.2-modules  0.3.51-1
> 
> Versions of packages libpipewire-0.3-0 recommends:
> ii  libpipewire-0.3-common  0.3.51-1
> ii  pipewire                0.3.51-1
> 
> libpipewire-0.3-0 suggests no packages.
> 
> -- no debconf information
> 
> -- 
> Vincent Lefèvre <vincent at vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
> 100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
> Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

-- 
Sebastian Ramacher