On Thu, Apr 24, 2025 at 10:55:39AM +0100, Pádraig Brady wrote:
2) The option --enable-systemd is off by default. On systems like Ubuntu 25.04 (without /var/run/utmp support) this leads to a dysfunctional 'who' program by default.What can be done about this? Ad 1) (a) One should add a coreutils/DEPENDENCIES file that contains the relevant subset of gnulib/DEPENDENCIES, and coreutils/README-install should reference it.+1(b) If --enable-systemd is specified by the user and libsystemd-dev is not installed, the configuration should err out.+1 Ideally this would be like --with-openssl. Note gnulib could have more conservative defaults, that packages can override. Coreutils for example does: gl_SET_CRYPTO_CHECK_DEFAULT([auto-gpl-compat]) For -with-systemd it would be good to have no,yes,auto options, and I think "auto" would be the appropriate gnulib default.
Ideally it would also not be all-or-nothing: if there's a /var/run/utmp it should be used regardless of libsystemd and if someone specifies a utmp file it should be used regardless of libsystemd. I don't understand why functionality is removed if libsystemd is linked.
