Please remove wireless-tools from oracular

[Ravi Kant Sharma]

Wireless Extensions support in the kernel has been deprecated[1] for a long time now. wireless-tools[2] userspace utility should be removed. iw[3] is considered as the alternate.

See page[4] for comparison between wireless-tools and iw. iw supports everything except deprecated Wireless-Extensions.

See page[5] for replacing iwconfig with iw.

$ reverse-depends wireless-tools
Reverse-Recommends
==================
* broadcom-sta-dkms
* hw-probe
* laptop-mode-tools
* task-laptop
* whereami

Reverse-Depends
===============
* aircrack-ng [amd64 ppc64el s390x]
* kubuntu-desktop [amd64 arm64 armhf ppc64el]
* lubuntu-desktop [amd64 arm64 armhf ppc64el s390x]
* vanilla-gnome-desktop [amd64 arm64 armhf ppc64el]

Packages without architectures listed are reverse-dependencies in: amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x

$ reverse-depends -b wireless-tools
Reverse-Build-Depends
=====================
* networkd-dispatcher

[1] https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/developers/documentation/wireless-extensions
[2] https://hewlettpackard.github.io/wireless-tools/Tools.html
[3] https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/documentation/iw
[4] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Network_configuration/Wireless#iw_and_wireless_tools_comparison
[5] https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/documentation/iw/replace-iwconfig

[Ravi Kant Sharma (ravi-sharma)]

$ reverse-depends -a source src:wireless-tools
Reverse-Build-Depends
=====================
* conky (for libiw-dev)
* guessnet (for libiw-dev)
* haskell-iwlib (for libiw-dev)
* libwlocate (for libiw-dev)
* lxpanel (for libiw-dev)
* matchbox-panel (for libiw-dev)
* mate-applets (for libiw-dev)
* networkd-dispatcher (for wireless-tools)
* ubiquity (for libiw-dev)
* wmwave (for libiw-dev)

[Ravi Kant Sharma (ravi-sharma)]

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libnl3 replaces libiw-dev

[wontfix (wontfix)]

wireless-tools has been a required dependency of the ubuntu-desktop-minimal package going back at least to focal.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Paride Legovini (paride)]

FWIW I maintain iw in Debian, so if there is anything that can be done in iw packaging to make this easier, just ping me.

[Ravi Kant Sharma (ravi-sharma)]

* aircrack-ng - wireless-tools is optional, https://github.com/aircrack-ng/aircrack-ng/commit/ddcf09b4d8ebff015efecec1bd1df7fd040956cc
* conky - needs decision, https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/issues/1001
* guessnet - to be removed, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/guessnet/+bug/2070374
* haskell-iwlib - to be removed, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/haskell-iwlib/+bug/2069064
* libwlocate - to be removed, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libwlocate/+bug/2070378
* lxpanel -
* matchbox-panel - to be removed, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/matchbox-panel/+bug/2069154
* mate-applets - iwlib is optional, migrated to libnl https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-applets/issues/400
* networkd-dispatcher - iwlib is optional, https://git.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/networkd-dispatcher/tree/debian/control#n12
* ubiquity -
* wmwave - to be removed, https://bugs.launchpad.net/debian/+source/wmwave/+bug/2072667