[Mageia-dev] gstreamer packaging too split?

[Colin Guthrie]

'Twas brillig, and Ahmad Samir at 05/07/11 10:50 did gyre and gimble:
>> I see packages like gstreamer0.10-soup installed as separate packages.
>> Is there any real gain from this split? Other than pulling in other
>> libraries etc, as it just causes potential problems for some packages
>> that do not require it. e.g. totem and rhythmbox both reqire the -soup
>> package but phonon-gstreamer does not (it should).
>>
>> But really, should this library just be bundled into the main -good
>> package?
> 
> I agree about merging -soup, without it gst-based apps can't seem to
> play online streams, this is a basic functionality, I guess.
> 
>>  Ditto for other "overly split" things, like the pulse plugin,
>> and the neon plugin in -bad....
>>
> 
> I dunno about pulse, it would pull pulseaudio on users' systems (I
> know it's installed by default, but some do a minimal install and
> don't install pulse, even if the some of pulse libs are too dug deep
> down the whole stack :)).

Hmmm, gstreamer0.10-pulse requires "pulseaudio >= 0.9.7". Interesting.

I'm not sure why (it could easily be installed on a system that does not
have a PA daemon and operates as a thin client.

Wonder if we should just drop that require and then the gst-pulse plugin
only really requires libpulse which a *lot* of other things need anyway,
and thus no additional stuff pulled in. WDYT?


>> Has anyone sad down and thought about it a bit recently (here or in Mdv?)
> 
> (I have to admit, I didn't sit down and think about it before). Here goes:
> 
> ===========================
> -good:
> $ urpmf --sourcerpm gstreamer0.10-plugins-good | awk -F: '{print $1}'
> gstreamer0.10-caca
> gstreamer0.10-raw1394
> gstreamer0.10-soup
> gstreamer0.10-plugins-good
> gstreamer0.10-dv
> gstreamer0.10-wavpack
> gstreamer0.10-pulse
> gstreamer0.10-jack
> gstreamer0.10-speex
> gstreamer0.10-aalib
> gstreamer0.10-flac
> 
> I think these can be merged in addition to -soup:
> -flac, an open format, expected to work o-o-t-b, IMHO
> -jack, doesn't matter really, it won't pull any more requires as
> libjack.so.0 is deep in the stack anyway (just tested with urpme
> --test and it wanted to yank 174 packages).
> 
> As for the rest I am not sure, e.g. I've never used -wavpack, so I
> think they can remain split.

Perhaps, but I'm just not convinced of the value of a split generally.
Sure you could argue that pulling in an extra lib here and there can
count for a lot of disk space, but then we end up with various problems
for other packages (like the soup issue - although granted, one as
obvious as that will likely not crop up with the more subtle extras -
until some user plugs in their dv video camera...... :p)

> =========================
> -ugly looks OK to me.
> 
> $ urpmf --sourcerpm gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly | awk -F: '{print $1}'
> gstreamer0.10-sid
> gstreamer0.10-twolame
> gstreamer0.10-a52dec
> gstreamer0.10-cdio
> gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
> gstreamer0.10-mpeg
> 
> 
> Though merging -a52dec looks like a good idea given how widely used
> the AC-3 codec is.
> 
> ==========================
> I left the "bad" for last, they look OK too, each sub-package
> pulls/requires a different lib (e.g. rtmp -> librtmp.so.0), I guess
> that's a good splitting criteria; I've never used -neon so I'll take
> your word for it :)
> $ urpmf --sourcerpm gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad | awk -F: '{print $1}' |
> grep -v lib
> gstreamer0.10-rtmp
> gstreamer0.10-nas
> gstreamer0.10-rsvg
> gstreamer0.10-soundtouch
> gstreamer0.10-musepack
> gstreamer0.10-gsm
> gstreamer0.10-resindvd
> gstreamer0.10-kate
> gstreamer0.10-neon
> gstreamer0.10-voip
> gstreamer0.10-jp2k
> gstreamer0.10-ladspa
> gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-doc
> gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad
> gstreamer0.10-celt
> gstreamer0.10-schroedinger
> gstreamer0.10-mms
> gstreamer0.10-dc1394
> gstreamer0.10-directfb
> gstreamer0.10-dirac
> gstreamer0.10-ofa
> gstreamer0.10-wildmidi
> gstreamer0.10-gme
> gstreamer0.10-vdpau
> gstreamer0.10-mpeg2enc
> gstreamer0.10-vp8
> gstreamer0.10-cog
> gstreamer0.10-curl
> 
> 
> (A bit off-topic, I think -nas should be deprecated, NAS doesn't seem
> that used lately?).

Yeah it is a bit of a grab-bag of stuff, but again, should we still just
bundle everything together anyway and sod the extra disk space needed?
It would be a lot simpler for users ("oh you need $foo? sure, just
installed -ugly/-bad") which is advise they can get direct from upstream
without having to know our particular packaging quirks.

As someone who does upstream support for other projects, it's a pain to
put caveats in all your advice for distros you don't know.

That said, the trade off may be too much, hence the canvassing of
opinions here :)

Col





-- 

Colin Guthrie
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http://colin.guthr.ie/

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