Your message dated Fri, 20 Feb 2026 22:20:58 +0000
with message-id <[email protected]>
and subject line Bug#734646: fixed in mono 6.14.1+ds2-2
has caused the Debian Bug report #734646,
regarding mono-nunit.pc shouldn't symlink to nunit.pc
to be marked as done.
This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.
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--
734646: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=734646
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact [email protected] with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: libmono-cil-dev
Version: 2.10.8.1-5
Steps to reproduce:
1. Some developer uses Mono in Debian/Ubuntu and makes a software that
requires NUnit to build.
2. She checks the contents of the file
/usr/lib/pkg-config/mono-nunit.pc in his system, and decides that this
version of nunit is good to be required (i.e. 2.6.0).
3. She goes and places a pkg-config check in his configure.ac,
checking for mono-nunit >= 2.6.0 version.
4. She commits her software to github.
5. Some user finds the software of this developer in gitorious (for
example), he checks it out in his Linux OS, and tries to compile it.
6. Given that the Mono version of his OS is a bit old, he decides to
use mono from git master (so he checks out mono, and compiles it, and
installs it).
7. He then tries to compile the Mono-based software he cloned from
gitorious before.
Expected results:
The configure script should fail and tell him to install NUnit 2.6.0 or above.
Current results:
Configure works, because mono's upstream mono-nunit.pc version has
Mono's version (3.2.7 as of this writing) in it[1], not NUnit's
version, but compilation fails (i.e. because the developer used some
NUnit API that is available in 2.6.0, but not in 2.4.8, which is the
version that mono provides[2]).
[1] https://github.com/mono/mono/blob/master/data/mono-nunit.pc.in
[2] https://github.com/mono/mono/blob/master/mcs/nunit24/CommonAssemblyInfo.cs
The culprit here is the fact that debian's mono packaging logic makes
mono-nunit.pc be a symlink to nunit.pc. If that wasn't the case, this
bug wouldn't exist. Some people in oftc#debian-cli state that the
symlink is to avoid maintaining two versions of a library, which is
fair enough. But then, one could avoid maintaining two versions of
this library by simply not installing mono-nunit.pc instead of making
it symlink to other package's pc file.
One might say that the real bug is mono's upstream: "the version in
mono-nunit.pc shouldn't be mono's version number, but 2.4.8, which is
the version that mono embeds". To that I would reply: "fair enough,
but even if you fix the bug upstream, the harm is already done for all
the mono versions prior to your bugfix, so I think it's also good to
fix this at the packaging level".
The commits that introduced this symlink are:
http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-cli-libs/packages/nunit.git;a=commitdiff;h=87332208
http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-mono/packages/mono.git;a=commitdiff;h=95518558
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Source: mono
Source-Version: 6.14.1+ds2-2
Done: Antoine Le Gonidec <[email protected]>
We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
mono, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.
A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.
Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed. If you
have further comments please address them to [email protected],
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.
Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Antoine Le Gonidec <[email protected]> (supplier of updated mono package)
(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing [email protected])
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
Format: 1.8
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2026 22:04:10 +0100
Source: mono
Architecture: source
Version: 6.14.1+ds2-2
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Debian QA Group <[email protected]>
Changed-By: Antoine Le Gonidec <[email protected]>
Closes: 734646 1120987
Changes:
mono (6.14.1+ds2-2) unstable; urgency=medium
.
* Orphan the package.
* Drop obsolete dead link to pkgconfig/nunit.pc.
(Closes: #734646)
* Add instructions about binfmt integration.
(Closes: #1120987)
* Drop obsolete field Rules-Requires-Root.
* Drop obsolete field Priority.
* Update debian/watch to version 5.
* Drop integration with GitLab CI/CD.
* Update upstream homepage URL.
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