Remove aptdaemon and drop or port its reverse-dependencies

[Barry Warsaw]

aptdaemon is abandoned and unmaintained. It has already been dropped from Debian, but there are several reverse dependencies keeping it in Ubuntu. I will add bug tasks for each of those dependencies, which should be ported or dropped themselves. Then we can get rid of aptdaemon too.

See this mailing list thread for more details: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2017-March/039722.html

https://github.com/ubuntu-mate/ubuntu-mate-welcome/issues/48

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

Here are a few more relevant comments from IRC and email:

<jbicha> barry: software-properties was already ported from aptdaemon to pk in
         Debian, we didn't push it into zesty since I don't think anyone
         checked if the driver code worked [16:51]
<jbicha>
         https://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/software-properties.git/tree/debian/patches/0004-Implement-PackageKit-support.patch

"sessioninstaller is essentially obsolete when you have gnome-software w/ the PackageKit backend. session-installer itself appears to be broken in general."

"So, sessioninstaller is an aptdaemon based implementation of the
PackageKit session interface. The two can be dropped together, since
they are both unmaintained and not needed. PackageKit provides
everything needed as a replacement.

The dependency by gnome-software is illusory, as it depends on
PackageKit D-Bus interfaces (provided by PackageKit). The dependency
wasn't even present in xenial, as far as I recall...

oem-config-gtk is a single script[1] with only a few lines of code
actually using aptdaemon, and that can be ported to use PackageKit
instead.

language-selector-gnome is similar[2], and should be easy to port out
to PackageKit, assuming this is even needed anymore. It doesn't look
like it's maintained either...

[1]: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-installer/ubiquity/trunk/view/head:/bin/oem-config-remove-gtk

[2]: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/vivid/language-selector/vivid/view/head:/LanguageSelector/gtk/GtkLanguageSelector.py
"

% reverse-depends src:aptdaemon
Reverse-Recommends
==================
* 0install-core (for python3-aptdaemon.pkcompat)
* dell-recovery (for python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* update-notifier (for python3-aptdaemon)
* update-notifier (for python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)

Reverse-Depends
===============
* apturl (for python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* apturl (for python3-aptdaemon)
* gnome-software (for aptdaemon)
* language-selector-gnome (for python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* language-selector-gnome (for aptdaemon)
* lubuntu-software-center (for python-aptdaemon)
* lubuntu-software-center (for python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* mythbuntu-control-centre (for python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* oem-config-gtk (for python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* oem-config-gtk (for aptdaemon)
* sessioninstaller (for python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* sessioninstaller (for aptdaemon)
* software-properties-gtk (for python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* ubuntu-mate-core (for python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* ubuntu-mate-desktop (for python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* ubuntu-mate-welcome (for python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)
* ubuntu-mate-welcome (for python3-aptdaemon)
* update-manager (for python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets)

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

Bugtasks added for revdep source packages. Hopefully I got them all.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Barry Warsaw wrote:
> language-selector-gnome is similar[2], and should be easy to port
> out to PackageKit, assuming this is even needed anymore. It doesn't
> look like it's maintained either...

While the Bazaar branch was abandoned, the language-selector package is maintained. language-selector-gnome provides the Language Support GUI used by Ubuntu as well as several flavors.

$ apt rdepends language-selector-gnome
language-selector-gnome
Reverse Depends:
  Depends: ubuntu-desktop
  Depends: xubuntu-desktop
  Depends: ubuntustudio-desktop
  Depends: ubuntukylin-desktop
  Depends: ubuntu-mate-desktop
  Depends: ubuntu-mate-core
  Depends: ubuntu-budgie-desktop
  Depends: lubuntu-desktop

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

Would be quite cool to make the language-selector use "localization" AppStream components to detect missing locale... That would also make it work easily with PackageKit.
=> https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/sect-Metadata-Localization.html

This would require some bigger effort though to generate the appropriate metadata (I will look into it though, since long-term I would like to have a solution like this at Debian as well).

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

This bug was fixed in the package zeroinstall-injector - 2.12-3

---------------
zeroinstall-injector (2.12-3) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Don't recommend python3-aptdaemon.pkcompat. Closes: #848559.

 -- Thomas Leonard <email address hidden> Sun, 19 Mar 2017 09:28:46 +0000

zeroinstall-injector (2.12-2) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Add missing build dep on tzdata. Closes: #839511.

 -- Thomas Leonard <email address hidden> Sun, 02 Oct 2016 12:53:59 +0000

zeroinstall-injector (2.12-1) unstable; urgency=medium

  * New upstream release.
  * Add missing build dep. Closes: #837226.

 -- Thomas Leonard <email address hidden> Sun, 25 Sep 2016 07:55:43 +0000

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

fails to build :(

[Thomas Leonard (talex5)]

On 20 March 2017 at 02:11, Jeremy Bicha <email address hidden> wrote:
> fails to build :(
>
> ** Changed in: zeroinstall-injector (Ubuntu)
> Status: Fix Released => Triaged

Not sure why it builds in Debian but not Ubuntu. If you need a quick
fix, adding a build-dependency on libsha-ocaml-dev should cause it to
use that instead of openssl (the build log says "sha (ocaml-sha) not
found; using OpenSSL instead").

[Thomas Leonard (talex5)]

I've now uploaded zeroinstall-injector 2.12-4 to Debian. That should fix the build problem here.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Thomas, thanks, the updated version worked.

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

dell-recovery has dropped the code related to aptdaemon.
https://github.com/dell/dell-recovery/commit/df1e943cd111c24e1cf3357701caace177f46de8

It will be part of the next release.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

gnome-software in artful-proposed uses PackageKit instead of aptdaemon
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-software/3.25.4-1ubuntu1

[Simon Quigley (tsimonq2)]

The Lubuntu Software Center has not been updated for several cycles and we don't even ship with it by default any more.

On behalf of the Lubuntu Team, I'd like to request that src:lubuntu-software-center be removed from Artful. Subscribing the Archive Administrators Team.

Reverse depends:
$ reverse-depends src:lubuntu-software-center
No reverse dependencies found

[Adam Conrad (adconrad)]

Removing packages from bionic:
 lubuntu-software-center 0.0.10-0ubuntu2 in bionic
  lubuntu-software-center 0.0.10-0ubuntu2 in bionic amd64
  lubuntu-software-center 0.0.10-0ubuntu2 in bionic arm64
  lubuntu-software-center 0.0.10-0ubuntu2 in bionic armhf
  lubuntu-software-center 0.0.10-0ubuntu2 in bionic i386
  lubuntu-software-center 0.0.10-0ubuntu2 in bionic ppc64el
  lubuntu-software-center 0.0.10-0ubuntu2 in bionic s390x
Comment: Obsolete and unused; LP: #1673258
Remove [y|N]? y
1 package successfully removed.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

mythbuntu-control-center Deleted on 2017-03-31 by Steve Langasek discontinued flavor; LP: #1639445

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

bionic has dell-recovery 1.54, marking as fixed

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

gnome-software landed

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-mate-meta - 1.216

---------------
ubuntu-mate-meta (1.216) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Refreshed dependencies
  * Removed libp11-kit-gnome-keyring from core, desktop (LP: #1745055)
  * Removed python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets from core, desktop (LP: #1673258)
  * Moved unattended-upgrades to core-recommends, desktop-recommends (LP: #1724499)

 -- Martin Wimpress <email address hidden> Wed, 28 Feb 2018 01:48:26 +0000

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

In the time it took to try to port from aptdaemon to packagekit, packagekit has gone dead upstream, and we have been recommended not to port further work to it.

Julian is now looking at providing an aptd as part of apt upstream that is fit for purpose.

I am unsubscribing ubuntu-archive from this bug.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

a software-properties using PackageKit is in:

https://launchpad.net/~packagekit/+archive/ubuntu/ppa/+packages

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

It's worth mentioning that while PackageKit will likely not receive much feature development unless someone steps up to do that, it is in solid maintenance mode and likely will remain like that for quite some time.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package software-properties - 0.98.0

---------------
software-properties (0.98.0) eoan; urgency=medium

  * Port to PackageKit (LP: #1673258); thanks to Matthias Klumpp for the
    initial work on this in Debian.
  * Run wrap-and-sort
  * Import patches from Debian to minimize delta:
    - Have AppStream ignore software-properties-drivers.desktop
    - Hack around test suite expecting Ubuntu
    - Machine-readable debian/copyright

 -- Julian Andres Klode <email address hidden> Thu, 18 Apr 2019 10:51:45 +0200

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Aaron Rainbolt (arraybolt3)]

We rewrote the update notifier in Qt/C++ and got rid of the aptdaemon dependency earlier in the Noble cycle, so this is now resolved in Noble.