[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#1000353: Bug#1000353: Downgrade e2fsprogs from Depends to Recommends?

[Andreas Henriksson]

Hello,

TL;DR Recommends: e2fsprogs instead of Depends should be fine.

On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 12:20:29AM +0100, Michael Biebl wrote:
> On 22.11.21 01:02, Trent W. Buck wrote:
> > Package: libblockdev-fs2
> > Version: 2.25-2
> > Severity: wishlist
> > File: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbd_fs.so.2.0.0
> > 
> > libblockdev-fs2 Depends e2fsprogs because it calls dumpe2fs &c.
> > This was done per https://bugs.debian.org/887270
> > AFAICT there is a run-time check for this:
> > 
> >      https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=bd_fs_ext_is_tech_avail
> > 
> > In other words, dumpe2fs isn't found in $PATH, libblockdev-fs2 will
> > print an obvious error, instead of e.g. segfaulting.
> > 
> > Therefore, can you downgrade e2fsprogs from Depends to Recommends?
> 
> Would probably be ok with me, given that libbd_fs also handles other file
> systems (and we don't have any hard deps e.g. for xfsprogs, ntfsprogs or
> dosfstools)
> 
> Andreas, wdyt?

For the record:

I stumbled upon this... apparently I missed this 2 years ago even though
you CCed me.

While it's great that the code has gracefull failure mode when e2fsprogs
is missing I'm not entirely convinced the "obvious" error message will
be noticed by (all) regular users.

However e2fsprogs is still `Priority: required` (and also has
`Important: yes` so once you get it, it'll be hard to get rid of).

So I think it's very unlikely that a regular user ends up without
e2fsprogs installed even if we drop it down to Recommends.

We should thus make it easier to support the non-regular usecase
(now that I'm aware there is actually such a use-case thanks to the
description of this bug report!).

Regards,
Andreas Henriksson