Bug#895038: libappindicator: deprecated in Debian; AppIndicator based applications, please switch to Ayatana (App)Indicator(s)

[Mike Gabriel]

Hi Ivo,

On  Mi 17 Okt 2018 15:46:11 CEST, Ivo De Decker wrote:

Control: block 895038 by 895037

Hi,

On Fri, Apr 06, 2018 at 01:07:39PM +0000, Mike Gabriel wrote:

Package: src:libappindicator
Severity: serious

The libappindicator package is currently QA team maintained in Debian and
shall be phased out hopfully during the buster release cycle. The
alternative (maintained upstream and Debian-downstream) is
libayatana-appindicator.

There is a lot of porting work to do (little patches are required for each
application), to let all AppIndicator aware applications build against the
new and supported AppIndicator shared lib fork "libayatana-appindicator".

For details, please see [1]

For a list of applications that require porting and the porting status, see
[2]

What's the status of this? Looking at testing, there are still quite a few
packages remaining that (build-)depend on libappindicator:

I wish I could give more time to writing patches against the listed packages. Possibly, I should do a bug filing round first and then add patches, when I get to working on individual packages.

# Broken Depends:
blueman: blueman
caffeine: caffeine
clipit: clipit
diodon: diodon
gmpc: gmpc
gromit-mpx: gromit-mpx
growl-for-linux: growl-for-linux
gtimelog: gtimelog
gxkb: gxkb
hime: hime
kylin-burner: libburner-media3-1
modem-manager-gui: modem-manager-gui
parcellite: parcellite
psensor: psensor
redshift: redshift-gtk
roger-router: roger-router
solaar: solaar-gnome3

The above list is irrelevant, what counts are the build-deps.



  * python-appindicator (Python2 bindings, GTK-2 version)
    -> porting required to python-ayatana-appindicator
  * gir1.2-appindicator-0.1 (GTK-2 version)
    -> gir1.2-ayatanaappindicator-0.1
  * gir1.2-appindicator3-0.1 (GTK-3 version)
    -> gir1.2-ayatanaappindicator3-0.1
  *

However, the following packages need to be considered regarding the Depends: field:

# Broken Build-Depends:
clipit: libappindicator3-dev
diodon: libappindicator3-dev (>= 0.3.0)
gcin: libappindicator3-dev
gmpc: libappindicator-dev
gromit-mpx: libappindicator3-dev
growl-for-linux: libappindicator-dev
gxkb: libappindicator-dev
hime: libappindicator-dev
kylin-burner: libappindicator3-dev (>= 0.0.7)
modem-manager-gui: libappindicator3-dev
parcellite: libappindicator-dev
psensor: libappindicator3-dev
roger-router: libappindicator3-dev
zeal: libappindicator-dev

This list is incomplete.

Additionally, you need to check for build-deps against:

  * libappindicator-dev (GTK-2 version of appindicator)
    -> porting required to libappindicator-dev (low prio)
  * libappindicator3-0.1-cil-dev (Mono bindings, GTK-2 version)
    -> porting required to libayatana-appindicator0.1-cil-dev

For libindicator, the list is:

The libindicator transition is nearly done.

# Broken Depends:
cairo-dock-plug-ins: cairo-dock-alsamixer-plug-in
                     cairo-dock-messaging-menu-plug-in
libappindicator: libappindicator1
                 libappindicator3-1
lightdm-gtk-greeter: lightdm-gtk-greeter
workrave: workrave

Broken Depends: are irrelevant here.

# Broken Build-Depends:
cairo-dock-plug-ins: libindicator3-dev

Actually, the cairo-dock Indicator stack is completely broken in Debian. The maintainer added a half-baked and untested fix (simply switching Build-Depends to aytana-ido without patching the code itself.

libappindicator: libindicator-dev (>= 0.3.90)
                 libindicator3-dev (>= 0.3.90)

-> This needs finishing the appindicator transition.

lightdm-gtk-greeter: libindicator3-dev

-> Patch submitted already.

workrave: libindicator3-dev (>= 0.3.19)

Oh, this one is new to me. Adding it to the wiki. [...] Ah, it's already there, but I wasn't aware of it being a libindicator porting issue (I though it was appindicator). Will take a look.

Do you still think it's realistic to get this done before the transition
freeze (2019-01-12)? If not, this should be postponed.

I'll do my best, but without help from maintainers, this will become difficult. I should write an enrolling mail to debian-devel, probably, to get more people on board.

To help the overview of what's still missing, it might be good to add blocking

bugs for every package to this one.

Yeah, I will do this.

The current status of all filed bugs with patches is this:

for libappindicator -> libayatana-appindicator:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=ayatana-appindicator;users=pkg-ayatana-de...@lists.alioth.debian.org

for libindicator -> libayatana-indicator
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=ayatanaindicators;users=pkg-ayatana-de...@lists.alioth.debian.org



The full list of work, already done and to be done, is here:
https://wiki.debian.org/Ayatana/IndicatorsTransition

Mike
--

mike gabriel aka sunweaver (Debian Developer)
mobile: +49 (1520) 1976 148
landline: +49 (4354) 8390 139

GnuPG Fingerprint: 9BFB AEE8 6C0A A5FF BF22  0782 9AF4 6B30 2577 1B31
mail: sunwea...@debian.org, http://sunweavers.net

Unfortunately, not all bugs submitted had usertags (and some of the second URL (#880193, #880169) actually belong to the first (ayatana-appindicator).

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