Control: tags -1 patch
On Thu, 14 May 2026 01:29:19 +0200 Gioele Barabucci <[email protected]>
wrote:
it appears that mate-session-manager uses `pidof` in its testsuite, or that
at least one of its binary packages uses `pidof` at runtime.
Historically, `pidof` was provided by the Essential package
`sysvinit-tools`, making an explicit dependency unnecessary. However
`pidof` will soon be moved to `procps` and will no longer be part of
the Essential set.
Please add an explicit dependency on `procps`:
* via the `Depends:` field of all binary packages of mate-session-manager
that use `pidof` at runtime;
* via the `Build-Depends:` field of mate-session-manager, if `pidof` is
used in tests run at build-time;
* via the `Depends:` field of `debian/control/tests`, if `pidof` is
used in autopkgtests.
To prevent any disruption for users of mate-session-manager, please add
this dependency now, before `pidof` is moved from `sysvinit-utils` to
`procps`. Alternatively, you could remove all uses of `pidof`.
It is believed that mate-session-manager uses `pidof` due to the following
code snippets:
```
path: mate-session-manager_1.26.1-3/mate-session/gsm-manager.c
{
int num_processes;
char * command = g_strdup_printf ("pidof %s | wc -l", name);
FILE *fp = popen(command, "r");
```
Indeed the function `process_is_running` in `gsm-manager.c` uses `pidof`
to check if a process is running, so `mate-session-manager` must depend
on `procps`.
You can find a MR that adds this dependency at
<https://salsa.debian.org/debian-mate-team/mate-session-manager/-/merge_requests/2>.
PS: Given that all that is checked are greeters, maybe upstream should
ask systemd instead of relying on pidof.
Regards,
--
Gioele Barabucci
