[pkg-wicd-maint] Bug#685146: wicd-daemon packages dependencies

[Axel Beckert]

Control: severity -1 wishlist
Control: clone -1 -2
Control: retitle -1 wicd-daemon: should only recommend wireless-tools and wpa-supplicant
Control: retitle -2 wicd-daemon: Should switch from iwconfig/ifconfig to iw/ip
Control: tag -2 + upstream
Control: forwarded -2 https://blueprints.launchpad.net/wicd/+spec/support-ip-iw

Hi,

Jörg-Volker Peetz wrote:
> Axel Beckert wrote on 01/22/17 04:36:
> > Jörg-Volker Peetz wrote:
> >> the dependency on an dhcp client in the packages should be formulated with the
> >> help of the virtual packet "dhcp-client" as something like
> >>
> >>   dhcpcd | pump | udhcpc | dhcp-client
> >>
> >> (Compare bug #680976.)
> 
> This means wicd does not cooperate with dhcpcd5?

My immediate repsonse would have been: It does work with dhcpcd5
because after https://bugs.debian.org/783272 we updated that
dependency to dhcpcd5.

But your question made me think and after some checking I noticed that
I probably assumed too much for that change: dhcpcd5 does only provide
/sbin/dhcpcd5 while wicd searches for "dhcpcd" without "5". So it
likely never find "dhcpcd5".

So the next thing is to check if changing the paths inside wicd from
dhcpcd to dhcpcd5 suffices to fix that or if that renaming was because
of interface incompatibilities -- which could mean that wicd can't use
dhcpcd[5] at all anymore in Debian.

Will have closer look at that. Thanks for making me aware of that
(even if unintended :-).

> >> Furthermore, I would like to suggest to change the dependency on
> >> "wireless-tools" to a recommendation,
> > 
> > Indeed, wicd theoretically could be used to handle wired
> > configurations only. I'm though not sure if wicd works properly
> > without iwconfig, iwlist and friends installed, so I'm reluctant here.
> > Additionally, I consider such cases being very rare.
> 
> The intention was not to dispense with wired networking, but that the package iw
> "will become the canonical command line tool for wireless configuration" as it
> says in its description.
[...]
> >> since with newer kernels this package isn't mandatory any more.
> > 
> > I don't see why this would be relevant here. The sole reason for
> > downgrading these dependencies is because there might be use cases
> > where wireless at all is not needed. (AFAIK wicd can't yet use "iw"
> > instead of iwconfig and friends.)
>
> I didn't know that.

Ah, ok. 

See https://blueprints.launchpad.net/wicd/+spec/support-ip-iw for the
upstream thoughts on that. (Not much there yet, though.)

> By the way, I recommended this because I intended to use wicd. I'm not a heavy
> user of wireless networking. Maybe, the priority of this bug should then be set
> to wishlist?

Indeed. And split up into two separate issues.

Thanks!

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
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