[Mageia-dev] gstreamer packaging too split?

[Ahmad Samir]

On 6 July 2011 14:40, Colin Guthrie <mageia at colin.guthr.ie> wrote:
> '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?
>

Indeed; and draksound will install pulseaudio when configuring the
system to use pulse.

>
>>> 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.

Me neither (split only when there's something to gain).

> 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
>

It would simplify things, for sure (though merging all those ones
feels a bit queasy). Maybe we could experiment just to have some
numbers, by installing all gst-{bad,ugly} in a clean chroot,
respectively, and see how much more disk space that would eat (I could
do that later on today or tomorrow).

>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Colin Guthrie
> mageia(at)colin.guthr.ie
> http://colin.guthr.ie/
>
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>



-- 
Ahmad Samir