[DSE-Dev] Bug#1141939: libselinux1 now Recommends selinux-utils, but is this necessary?

[Simon McVittie]

On Mon, 13 Jul 2026 at 16:58:28 +1000, Russell Coker wrote:
>The package selinux-utils is depended on by selinux-policy-default, so it will
>be dragged in by every functional SE Linux system

On https://salsa.debian.org/selinux-team/libselinux/-/merge_requests/14, 
Adrian argued that "On an embedded system one does often provision 
policy through other means" (presumably meaning that such systems would 
not necessarily have selinux-policy-default installed). Is that a 
use-case that is supported by the SE Linux team in Debian?

If yes, is there a package that is smaller than selinux-policy-default, 
but *does* need to be pulled in by every functional SE Linux system? I'm 
hoping that one of selinux-basics, policycoreutils or selinux-utils has 
that role.

If all working SE Linux systems will have one of those packages, then 
the same reasoning says that the Recommends isn't necessary.

     smcv