bug or FR: refactor DEs out of packages=mint-meta-debian-*

[TomRoche]

Packages={`mint-meta-debian-cinnamon`, `mint-meta-debian-mate`} seem problematic for folks using other desktop environments (aka DEs, e.g., KDE, Xfce). But removing those packages is known to cause non-DE-related problems. (ISTM that's a bug--am I missing something?) So why not instead

1. create a new package=`mint-meta-debian` to do only non-DE-specific management (e.g., in LMDE2, replacing package=`mintupdate-debian` with package=`mintupdate`)
2. remove non-DE-specific management from the DE-specific packages (`mint-meta-debian-cinnamon`, `mint-meta-debian-mate`--are there any others currently?)
3. make the DE-specific packages depend on the non-DE-specific package

? That would seem to

1. allow folks wanting to use other DEs with LMDE to have {smaller, less error-prone} installs
2. make life easier for folks wanting to do community editions for other DEs based on LMDE: they could just create/maintain a new package=`mint-meta-debian-my-happy-DE` for whatever DE they want to support
3. make us computer-science majors happier (proper dependency management makes my heart go pitter-pat :-)

But I dunno if this has been discussed before, or if there's some fatal flaw with this proposal (I still know waaay too little about Debian packaging), so I figured I'd post here before going to the tracker.

[killer de bug]

In Betsy, only 2 DE are officially supported: Cinnamon and Mate. Therefore these packages make sense the way they are. They are used to make sure that all components of the DE are properly installed. See the example here for Cinnamon:

Code: Select all

KDB@KDB-laptop ~ $ apt depends mint-meta-debian-cinnamon
mint-meta-debian-cinnamon
  Dépend: mint-meta-debian-core
  Dépend: gdebi
  Dépend: mint-artwork-cinnamon
  Dépend: mint-artwork-debian-cinnamon
  Dépend: pidgin
  Dépend: thunderbird
  Dépend: fonts-droid
  Dépend: fonts-liberation
  Dépend: mintstick
  Dépend: hexchat
  Dépend: xdg-user-dirs-gtk
  Dépend: nemo
  Dépend: nemo-fileroller
  Dépend: cinnamon
  Dépend: cinnamon-screensaver
  Dépend: cinnamon-session
  Dépend: cinnamon-control-center
  Dépend: cinnamon-themes
  Dépend: gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0
  Dépend: nemo-share
  Dépend: nemo-emblems
  Dépend: nemo-folder-color-switcher

You can perfectly live without it. The only important package you need to install is mint-meta-debian-core. This will install all the tools specific to Linux Mint.

Code: Select all

KDB@KDB-laptop ~ $ apt depends mint-meta-debian-core
mint-meta-debian-core
  Dépend: linuxmint-keyring
  Dépend: <mint-info>
    mint-info-debian
    mint-info-debian-cinnamon
    mint-info-debian-mate
  Dépend: mint-artwork-debian
  Dépend: debian-system-adjustments
  Dépend: fortunes-husse
  Dépend: grub2-theme-mint
  Dépend: mint-search-addon
  Dépend: mint-translations
  Dépend: mintbackup
  Dépend: mintinstall
  Dépend: mintinstall-icons
  Dépend: mintnanny
  Dépend: mintsystem
  Dépend: mintupdate
  Dépend: mint-mirrors
  Dépend: mintsources
  Dépend: mintupload
  Dépend: mintwelcome
  Dépend: mintwifi
  Dépend: p7zip
  Dépend: command-not-found
  Dépend: inxi
  Dépend: fonts-noto

Therefore your claims are not correct
Especially, your claims about MintUpdate is not concerned by the *-cinnamon or *-mate packages. It is part of the *-core package. This one, you should have it installed whatever the DE you are using.

[TomRoche]

I'd also support making the the DE-specific packages (e.g., `mint-meta-debian-cinnamon`, `mint-meta-debian-mate`) super-packages for their respective DEs, to solve problems like this one. Should one need to know that, to (e.g.) remove Cinnamon from a MATE system, that one must remove packages={cinnamon nemo cinnamon-screensaver cinnamon-control-center}? IMHO, one should need only to (again, for this example) remove package=mint-meta-debian-cinnamon: removing the DE-specific super-package should cause all other DE-specific packages to be removed.

[TomRoche]

You can perfectly live without (e.g., mint-meta-debian-cinnamon).

Unfortunately, your claim seems empirically false, at least for LMDE1: see here and here. I.e., if one deletes package=mint-meta-debian-cinnamon and then upgrades, package=`mintupdate-debian` will not be replaced with package=`mintupdate`.