Bug#578279: evince: Is relying on dbus & gconf really necessary?

[Mike Edwards]

Package: evince
Version: 2.28.2-1
Severity: wishlist


As the subject says - is it really necessary to rely on dbus & gconf?  While
it's all well and good that dbus gives apps numerous ways to communicate
with each other, and gconf gives apps a central place to store and retreive
configuration settings, one could argue that they add unnecessary complexity.

If dbus or gconf breaks, how does an end-user debug it?  Should the end-user
be required to post on forums, kill random processes, and eventually reboot
in the hope that he can read a pdf?  Documentation for these layers is sadly
sparse, and breakage is far too common, with a myriad number of reasons.

evince is a tool meant for end-users.  Shouldn't it's functionality match?


-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32.9 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages evince depends on:
ii  evince-common           2.28.2-1         Document (postscript, pdf) viewer 
ii  gconf2                  2.28.0-1         GNOME configuration database syste
ii  gnome-icon-theme        2.28.0-1         GNOME Desktop icon theme
ii  libatk1.0-0             1.30.0-1         The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libc6                   2.10.2-2         GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2               1.8.8-2          The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3             1.2.16-2         simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2        0.84-1           simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libevince1              2.28.2-1         Document (postscript, pdf) renderi
ii  libfontconfig1          2.8.0-2          generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6            2.3.11-1         FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libgconf2-4             2.28.0-1         GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglib2.0-0            2.24.0-1         The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome-keyring0       2.28.2-1         GNOME keyring services library
ii  libgtk2.0-0             2.20.0-3         The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libice6                 2:1.0.6-1        X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libnautilus-extension1  2.28.4-1         libraries for nautilus components 
ii  libpango1.0-0           1.26.2-1         Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpoppler-glib4        0.12.2-2         PDF rendering library (GLib-based 
ii  libsm6                  2:1.1.1-1        X11 Session Management library
ii  libx11-6                2:1.3.3-1        X11 client-side library
ii  libxml2                 2.7.6.dfsg-2+b1  GNOME XML library
ii  shared-mime-info        0.70-1           FreeDesktop.org shared MIME databa
ii  zlib1g                  1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3 compression library - runtime

Versions of packages evince recommends:
ii  dbus-x11                      1.2.16-2   simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  gvfs                          1.4.3-1    userspace virtual filesystem - ser

Versions of packages evince suggests:
ii  nautilus                      2.28.4-1   file manager and graphical shell f
pn  poppler-data                  <none>     (no description available)
ii  unrar                         1:3.8.2-1  Unarchiver for .rar files (non-fre

-- no debconf information