Install/upgrade failure when numix-gtk-theme PPA package present

[Andrew Starr-Bochicchio]

Numix is a popular theme. It's nice to see it available in Ubuntu proper, but since it is popular many people will have it installed from upstream's PPA. This leads to upgrade/install failures.

$ sudo apt-get install shimmer-themes
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  shimmer-themes
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 8 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/306 kB of archives. After unpacking 1,878 kB will be used.
Selecting previously unselected package shimmer-themes.
(Reading database ... 420170 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking shimmer-themes (from .../shimmer-themes_1.6.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/shimmer-themes_1.6.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/themes/Numix/gtk-3.0/assets/grid-selection-checked.svg', which is also in package numix-gtk-theme 1.9-0~151+201308152202~raring1
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
                                                              dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/shimmer-themes_1.6.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install. Trying to recover:

[Simon Steinbeiß (ochosi)]

In order to be able to really fix this bug, the package-structure of shimmer-themes would probably have to be changed, meaning that shimmer-themes would become a meta-package and all the themes separate packages. That mostly means more work for packagers.

While it is understandable that you want to use the latest version of Numix, there are two alternatives to your current route:
1) use the shimmer-themes daily PPA: https://launchpad.net/~shimmerproject/+archive/daily
2) just pull directly from git into your ~/.themes folder

At least for 13.10, this is a wontfix from my side (also because it's too late in the cycle).

[Pasi Lallinaho (knome)]

The solution is as Simon proposed; use the shimmer-themes daily PPA.

If somebody wants to package a single theme separately (which might be up for discussion with the Shimmer packages as well), they are free to do so, but it's their responsibility to take care it's not in conflict with packages in the official repositories, eg. install in a different directory.

Closing this as invalid.

[Andrew Starr-Bochicchio (andrewsomething)]

On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 6:38 PM, Pasi Lallinaho <email address hidden> wrote:
> If somebody wants to package a single theme separately (which might be
> up for discussion with the Shimmer packages as well), they are free to
> do so, but it's their responsibility to take care it's not in conflict
> with packages in the official repositories, eg. install in a different
> directory.

That's all fine I suppose, but my main concern is that a non-trivial
number of user will have issues upgrading to saucy because of this.
Numix is a fairly popular theme. A small part of the reason for this
popularity is that the upstream project has made it easy for Ubuntu
users to install via a PPA. AFAICT, shimmer-themes added Numix during
saucy's development. You make it sound as if people started packaging
it separately at some point after it was included in shimmer-themes,
while in reality it has been available as a standalone package for
sometime in the upstream's PPA. Normally, I agrees that it is a PPA's
owner's "responsibility to take care [their packages are] not in
conflict with packages in the official repositories," but it is also
the responsibility of the distro packager to work with the upstream.

-- Andrew Starr-Bochicchio

   Ubuntu Developer <https://launchpad.net/~andrewsomething>
   Debian Developer <http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=asb>
   PGP/GPG Key ID: D53FDCB1

[Simon Steinbeiß (ochosi)]

Hi Andrew,
first of all, Satya (the author of the Numix theme, or one of them) is a part of the Shimmer Project, so we'll obviously resolve this issue together, but not in the Ubuntu package, but in the PPA.
Furthermore, PPAs are disabled by default on upgrading from e.g. 13.04 to 13.10, so this is not an issue.

[Satyajit Sahoo (satyajit-happy)]

I've added Conflicts: shimmer-themes in the Numix PPA.

[Simon Steinbeiß (ochosi)]

Thanks a bunch!

[Andrew Starr-Bochicchio (andrewsomething)]

On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 3:35 AM, Simon Steinbeiß
<email address hidden> wrote:
> Furthermore, PPAs are disabled by default on upgrading from e.g. 13.04 to 13.10, so this is not an issue.

For the record, PPAs are disabled but their packages aren't purged.

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

> I've added Conflicts: shimmer-themes in the Numix PPA.

Obviously, that won't do.

The only thing you're going to achieve with that is prevent people to have all shimmer themes installed at the same time, and have apt remove either shimmer-themes or numix-gtk-theme on upgrades, depending on which of them gets the highest score.

Numix seems to be a theme under the umbrella of the shimmerproject, which already has a PPA, a daily PPA, and we ensured in the past that packages would use a different namespace/folder name (e.g. albatross-git) or ship an updated shimmer-themes in the ppa, to avoid any conflict with the ubuntu package. So why break that "rule" now?

Please remove the "Conflicts: shimmer-themes", thanks.

(On a side note, the shimmer-themes binary package is *small*, < 500Ko, so I don't see the point in splitting it in many very small binary packages, one for each theme...)

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

I have re-proposed splitting numix-gtk-theme into a separate package, see bug 1593038.