Bug#398924: Conflict between Gnome, udev, hotplug and linux-2.4

[Steve Langasek]

On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 04:37:56PM +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
> > Why is the network going to stop working?  Removing the hotplug package
> > unloads the modules for some reason?

> Not unless you reboot the system, which I thought was a good thing to do (to
> ensure my runtime was completely up-to-date).  If rebooting at that point is a
> source of trouble, I think we could document this in release notes.

Agreed, certainly.

> > How likely is it that the converse would happen, that the etch kernel
> > package would be installed but udev is not, resulting in breakage on reboot
> > because hotplug is incompatible?  If anything, this case seems more likely
> > if the dependencies of gnome are changed.

> But the etch linux-image-* package directly depends on udev, so that's not
> possible.

Indirectly.  The linux image package depends on initramfs-tools | yaird |
linux-initramfs-tool, and only initramfs-tools depends on udev.

Using yaird to configure a kernel initramfs isn't possible from a 2.4 host
kernel, though.  So yes, we can ignore this case.

> > > Perhaps a good choice would be to get gnome-desktop-environment to depend on:

> > >   "gnome-volume-manager | hotplug"

> > That means significant functionality of the GNOME desktop would be
> > completely ignored by apt just because hotplug is installed.  Not a good
> > option, AFAICS.

> Not necessarily.  Later in the install process, when we install etch
> linux-image which drags in udev, removal of hotplug will be forced
> Then the dependency on "gnome-volume-manager | hotplug" is no longer
> satisfied, and apt has to figure out that installing gnome-volume-manager
> does the trick (I'm not sure if it is able to figure that out, though).

And in the meantime, packages that are listed in state "installed" on the
system are in fact not completely functional.  I consider that a wrong
dependency.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon at debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/