[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#747397: policykit-1 forces using systemd and may break systems with sysvinit after update

[Boris Pek]

Package: policykit-1
Version: 0.105-5
Severity: critical
Justification: makes unrelated software on the system (or the whole system) break


Hi,

I have just found that new version of policykit-1 forces using systemd on users
systems:

$ sudo apt-get install policykit-1 -V --no-install-recommends
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
   libcryptsetup4 (1.6.4-4)
   libpam-systemd (204-10)
   systemd (204-10)
   systemd-sysv (204-10)
Suggested packages:
   systemd-ui (3-2)
The following packages will be REMOVED:
   sysvinit-core (2.88dsf-53)
The following NEW packages will be installed:
   libcryptsetup4 (1.6.4-4)
   libpam-systemd (204-10)
   systemd (204-10)
   systemd-sysv (204-10)
The following packages will be upgraded:
   policykit-1 (0.105-4 => 0.105-5)
1 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 1 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 1368 kB of archives.
After this operation, 5175 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

It may be normal to use systemd by default on new Debian installations, but
why users with already installed Debian should be forced to use it without
alternatives?

Have you checked what this serious change will not break users systems after
updating from Wheezy to Jessie?

Next, I have checked what I will lose if I will remove this package:

$ sudo apt-get purge policykit-1 -V --no-install-recommends
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
   aptdaemon* (1.1.1-3)
   colord* (1.0.6-1)
   policykit-1* (0.105-5)
   polkit-kde-1* (0.99.1-1)
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
After this operation, 4279 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

And it looks that policykit-1 cannot be safely removed without losing
convenient work in KDE.

Please solve this issue somehow.

Best regards,
Boris