Bug 215687
| Summary: | gnome-volume-manager depends on kernel | ||||||
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| Product: | [Fedora] Fedora | Reporter: | Pavel Roskin <plroskin> | ||||
| Component: | gnome-volume-manager | Assignee: | David Zeuthen <davidz> | ||||
| Status: | CLOSED WORKSFORME | QA Contact: | |||||
| Severity: | medium | Docs Contact: | |||||
| Priority: | medium | ||||||
| Version: | 6 | CC: | mclasen, triage | ||||
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||||||
| Target Release: | --- | ||||||
| Hardware: | All | ||||||
| OS: | Linux | ||||||
| Whiteboard: | bzcl34nup | ||||||
| Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | |||||
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |||||
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||||||
| Last Closed: | 2008-04-04 05:12:51 UTC | Type: | --- | ||||
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- | ||||
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |||||
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |||||
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |||||
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |||||
| Embargoed: | |||||||
| Attachments: |
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The same problem exists in Fedora Development, except that the component is called gnome-volume-control. A few more arguments in case the above wasn't convincing. I'm participating in Fedora development by using the development distribution. I'm going to fix bugs in some userspace software that has problems with Fedora. I'm also doing kernel development, and I'm submitting fixed to several drivers. I'm updating kernel sources from several git branches every day. What I'm not doing is kernel development for Fedora. It involves many issues I'm not interested in, such as virtualization and optimization for speed. In fact, I need a slow kernel with most debugging enabled for my work. Now, since I'm on Fedora Development, I'm going to download another Fedora kernel almost every day. I know, I can disable updates and run my kernel anyway. But doesn't in mean that I'm fooling the dependency system? gnome-volume-control says it wants Fedora kernel, and it's present but not running. Now, if I try to uninstall the Fedora kernel, I have to uninstall gnome-volume-control and also gnome-session, which depends on gnome-volume-control. Isn't it like saying "you may not use our desktop if you are not using our kernel"? Sure, I'm using IceWM as my window manager, but I don't like to be forced to lose the ability to log in into GNOME. I think alienating users who are also kernel developers is not a smart thing for a distribution to do. Fedora apologizes that these issues have not been resolved yet. We're sorry it's taken so long for your bug to be properly triaged and acted on. We appreciate the time you took to report this issue and want to make sure no important bugs slip through the cracks. If you're currently running a version of Fedora Core between 1 and 6, please note that Fedora no longer maintains these releases. We strongly encourage you to upgrade to a current Fedora release. In order to refocus our efforts as a project we are flagging all of the open bugs for releases which are no longer maintained and closing them. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/LifeCycle/EOL If this bug is still open against Fedora Core 1 through 6, thirty days from now, it will be closed 'WONTFIX'. If you can reporduce this bug in the latest Fedora version, please change to the respective version. If you are unable to do this, please add a comment to this bug requesting the change. Thanks for your help, and we apologize again that we haven't handled these issues to this point. The process we are following is outlined here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/F9CleanUp We will be following the process here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping to ensure this doesn't happen again. And if you'd like to join the bug triage team to help make things better, check out http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers The problem doesn't exist in Fedora 8. gnome-volume-manager-2.17.0-8.fc8 doesn't depend on the kernel, directly or indirectly. That said, there are still packages wrongly dependent on the kernel, both in F8 and development, and they should be fixed. Created attachment 342254 [details]
Specfile for the kernel-local package
I have found an easier solution than arguing with package maintainers to remove kernel dependencies. The attached file can be turned into a package by "rpmbuild -bb kernel-local.spec". Once kernel-local is installed, it's possible to remove the kernel package.
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Description of problem: gnome-volume-manager depends on kernel >= 2.6, which prevents me from uninstalling the kernel Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 2.15.0-2.fc6 How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1. rpm -e kernel Actual results: # rpm -e kernel error: Failed dependencies: kernel >= 2.6.12-1.1411_FC5 is needed by (installed) pcmciautils-014-5.i386 kernel >= 2.6 is needed by (installed) gnome-volume-manager-2.15.0-2.fc6.i386 kernel >= 2.6.9-11 is needed by (installed) systemtap-runtime-0.5.10-1.fc6.i386 kernel >= 2.6.9-11 is needed by (installed) systemtap-0.5.10-1.fc6.i386 Expected results: No errors, the kernel is uninstalled Additional info: I realize it's a very arguable bug, so let me provide some background. Fedora should be friendly to the users customizing their kernels. In particular, if a custom kernel is installed, it should be possible to uninstall the distributed kernel and avoid all kernel updates. The kernel has a special role. It's connected directly to the hardware. It's doing all low-level networking. It's running always. It affects the performance greatly. It has hundreds of options. Users are more likely to customize the kernel than any other package. Due to the kernel-userspace barrier, the kernel is less connected to the rest of the distribution than the userspace packages to each other. It should be easy to replace the kernel. But the dependencies of a few packages prevent it. The dependencies are not meant to ensure that the kernel has necessary features. Even a 2.6 kernel may not provide sound interface if there are no sound devices. Some kernel facilities may be locked by other processes. No sane userspace software should depend on the kernel features the same way as it depends on the libraries, i.e. fail to run properly in the absence of the dependencies. Every userspace package should be prepared to work around gracefully lack of the kernel features. It should not crash or get stuck in the startup scripts. Dependencies are also useful for fetching the dependent packages along with the one requested by the user. Upgrading the kernel would be a major overkill if all the user wants it to update gnome-volume-manager. Speaking of updating, the kernels are installed by default, not upgraded. One can have many kernel installed. It's a standard situation even for a two week old Fedora Core to have more than one kernel installed. Most dependencies require files to be present. The kernel dependencies "require" the kernel to be running. But the kernel that satisfies the dependency may not be the one that is running. The userspace packages are required to deal with it. Therefore, dependencies on the kernel are not "hard dependencies" - they are very "soft". And they create more problems than they can possibly solve. Please remove the dependency on the kernel from gnome-volume-manager