Re: [Bastille-linux-discuss] Patch #3: Check if $DISPLAY is set before attempting the use of the X GUI

[Javier <jf...@co...>]

On Wed, Jun 28, 2006 at 08:56:34AM -0400, Albert E. Whale wrote:
> Jay Beale wrote:
> >Our biggest user support problem is when users have trouble installing 
> >the necessary perl-Tk or perl-Curses libraries.  Often, they can't find 
> >the libraries, but many get confused by dependencies in general.

I see, this in Debian is not that much of an issue (see below), so much so
that I added this to the README.Debian file that gets distributed with the
package:

"- There is no "best" interface, that's why dependencies are set that way,
  read bastille (7) to see which interface best suits you. The bastille
  package is prepared so that it will warn the user if he tries to use an
  interface that he does not have the needed Perl libraries for. At the
  very least, you can use 'BastilleBackEnd' with a predefined configuration
  installed in /etc/Bastille.

  This is *not* a Bug, please don't report it as such.
  (Many others already did see  #112572, #113013, #112626, #210399, #212156...)

  You might encounter this issue, however, if you are installing using
  plain 'apt-get'. If you encounter this issue you're all alone, you shouldn't
  be using tools you do not understand, consider using 'dselect' or, even,
  'aptitude' or read Bastille's dependency lines. Currently:

  Depends: (...) libcurses-perl
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This one provides the console frontend
  Suggests: (...) perl-tk (>= 1:800.011) | libgtk-perl
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                 Any of these can be used as a graphical GUI, install
                 the one you prefer best.
"

This is also explained in the bastille(7) manpage I sent as a separate patch
(read the section labeled 'INTERFACES')

> >I've planning, for Red Hat, Mandriva and SUSE, to create "fat" packages 
> >that bring their own dependencies with them.  This idea is already 
> >commonplace with tools like nmap, which do this both to ease dependency 
> >resolution but also to make sure they get a predictable library version. 
> >  The libraries would be placed in Bastille-specific directories, so as 
> >to avoid interfering with versions already present on the system.

That is a problem if, for example, those libraries get a security
vulnerability (think temporary file handle, for example). The burden on
providing updated versions will reside in Bastille's team's shoulders.

> >Would this make sense on Debian? We'd create a second Debian package, 
> >such that users could apt-get install Bastille or apt-get install 
> >Bastille-all-deps?

No, it doesn't make sense in Debian. Debian users can just do:

$ aptitude bastille
[ installs automatically, the Curses libraries and PSAD since it installs 
Dependencies: and Recommends: ]

If a user wants other GUIs he has to select those explicitly [1]. If the user
is using a high-level package management system (synaptic, dselect) he can
select (when selecting a package or through global configuration) to install
Recommended: or Suggested: packages. 

If the user is using a low-level UI (apt-get) he has to explicitly ask for
those.

I could, however, introduce a new 'bastille-X' or 'bastille-gui' package which could
Depend: on bastille and the GTK/TK modules so that it would automatically pull
those in when a user runs 'apt-get bastille-gui' or 'apt-get bastille-gui'.
But I guess most users will not bother with another package and will most
commonly run 'apt-get bastille' and expect that to work without reading the
documentation available (either the README.Debian or the bastille(7) manpage
I wrote).

Regards

Javier


[1] Older versions of aptitude in Debian would also allow this:

$ aptitude --with-suggests bastille
[ will also install the Suggested: packages which includes acct, Perl-Tk or
  libgtk-perl ]