Firejail package wants to remove "xorg" packages

[^rooker]

Trying to install the "firejail" package on a fresh system install (Xubuntu 18.04.3) wants to remove the following packages:

> The following packages will be REMOVED:
> xorg xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04 xubuntu-core xubuntu-desktop

I have a bad feeling about this, but couldn't find any information why that is so.

Aptitude gives more information, but I honestly don't understand these unmet dependencies/conflicts (see below).

If I'd install it, it seems to mark quite vital packages to be autoremoved (see below).
I've tried apt, aptitude and synaptic.

This seems odd.
If anyone has any information on why that is so and if that is okay, I'd be very grateful. Because now I'm not daring to install firejail, so might this even qualify as "security vulnerability"? ;)

Thank you very much in advance!

Additional information by "apt install firejail":
================================================

The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  amd64-microcode efibootmgr intel-microcode iucode-tool libaudclient2 libfwup1 libimlib2 libxatracker2 libxmmsclient6
  libxnvctrl0 libxvmc1 linux-generic-hwe-18.04 linux-headers-generic-hwe-18.04 linux-image-generic-hwe-18.04 thermald
  x11-apps x11-session-utils xinit xserver-xorg-legacy-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-all-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-ati-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-fbdev-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-video-intel-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-qxl-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-video-radeon-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-vesa-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-vmware-hwe-18.04

Additional information by "aptitude install firejail":
================================================

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 xserver-xorg-core : Conflicts: xserver-xorg-video-modesetting which is a virtual package, provided by:
                                - xserver-xorg-core (2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.2), but 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.4 is to be installed
                                - xserver-xorg-core-hwe-18.04 (2:1.20.5+git20191008-0ubuntu1~18.04.1), but 2:1.20.5+git20191008-0ubuntu1~18.04.1 is installed
                                - xserver-xorg-core (2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.4), but 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.4 is to be installed
                                - xserver-xorg-core (2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4), but 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.4 is to be installed

 xserver-xorg-core-hwe-18.04 : Conflicts: xserver-xorg-core but 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.4 is to be installed
                               Conflicts: xserver-xorg-video-modesetting which is a virtual package, provided by:
                                          - xserver-xorg-core (2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.2), but 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.4 is to be installed
                                          - xserver-xorg-core-hwe-18.04 (2:1.20.5+git20191008-0ubuntu1~18.04.1), but 2:1.20.5+git20191008-0ubuntu1~18.04.1 is installed
                                          - xserver-xorg-core (2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.4), but 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.4 is to be installed
                                          - xserver-xorg-core (2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4), but 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.4 is to be installed

 xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04 : Conflicts: xserver-xorg-core (>= 0~) but 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.4 is to be installed

[Reiner Herrmann (deki)]

Are you sure it's related to firejail? In your output I don't see firejail mentioned, only xorg-related packages.
firejail does not have any xorg dependency (only recommmendation on either xpra, xeyhr or xvfb).

[^rooker (rooker)]

Oh. Sorry for truncating the output. Yes it's definitely the firejail package.

Here's the complete uncut commandline and console output:

sudo apt install firejail

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libfwup1 libxatracker2 libxvmc1 x11-apps x11-session-utils xinit
  xserver-xorg-legacy-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-all-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-ati-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-video-fbdev-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-intel-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-video-nouveau-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-qxl-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-video-radeon-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-vesa-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-video-vmware-hwe-18.04
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  firejail-profiles ssh-askpass
Recommended packages:
  xpra | xserver-xephyr | xvfb
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  xorg xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04 xubuntu-core xubuntu-desktop
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  firejail firejail-profiles ssh-askpass
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 4 to remove and 11 not upgraded.
Need to get 313 kB of archives.
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[Reiner Herrmann (deki)]

Can you please try "apt install --no-install-recommends firejail"?
This should skip installation of the recommended packages for firejail and there should be no problem.

[^rooker (rooker)]

That worked!
(Sorry for the late reply)

I've never used firejail before, but it installed without errors.
I've also tried starting some applications and it seems to work.

Do you agree that this is still an issue, since the regular install way seems to have "contradicting" dependency issues that could be fixed?

btw: I've tried installing firejail package on Xubuntu 16.04: And there were no such dependency conflicts: It installed normally without warnings or removal of base packages.

Thanks for the workaround though!

[Reiner Herrmann (deki)]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 09:37:49AM -0000, ^rooker wrote:
> I've never used firejail before, but it installed without errors.
> I've also tried starting some applications and it seems to work.
>
> Do you agree that this is still an issue, since the regular install way
> seems to have "contradicting" dependency issues that could be fixed?

Okay, thanks for confirming that it's not because of the installation of
firejail itself.
firejail recommends the following packages currently:
 Recommends: firejail-profiles, iproute2, iptables, xauth, xpra | xserver-xephyr | xvfb

You could try to install them manually one by one (as they are needed for
some of the firejail features), but I would guess it's because of one of
the X-related packages.
Maybe the bug can be reassigned when you find the package that causes
the issue.

Thanks!

[Aki Ketolainen (akik)]

I ran into this same problem on Ubuntu MATE 18.04.4 install:

# apt-get install firejail
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  amd64-microcode efibootmgr intel-microcode iucode-tool libappstream-glib8 libegl1-mesa libfwup1 libxatracker2 libxfont2 libxvmc1 linux-generic-hwe-18.04 linux-image-generic-hwe-18.04 thermald x11-apps
  x11-session-utils xfonts-base xfonts-encodings xfonts-scalable xfonts-utils xinit xinput xserver-common xserver-xorg-core-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-input-all-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-input-libinput-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-input-wacom-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-legacy-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-all-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-ati-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-fbdev-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-video-intel-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-qxl-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-radeon-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-video-vesa-hwe-18.04
  xserver-xorg-video-vmware-hwe-18.04
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  firejail-profiles python-cairo python-dbus python-gi-cairo ssh-askpass
Suggested packages:
  python-dbus-dbg python-dbus-doc
Recommended packages:
  xpra | xserver-xephyr | xvfb
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  ubuntu-mate-core ubuntu-mate-desktop xorg xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  firejail firejail-profiles python-cairo python-dbus python-gi-cairo ssh-askpass
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 467 kB of archives.
After this operation, 1 871 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
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