Control: found -1 1.28.1-1
Control: tags -1 patch

On Thu, 14 May 2026 01:29:16 +0200 Gioele Barabucci <[email protected]> wrote:
it appears that mate-screensaver 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-screensaver
  that use `pidof` at runtime;
* via the `Build-Depends:` field of mate-screensaver, 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-screensaver, 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-screensaver uses `pidof` due to the following
code snippets:

```
path: mate-screensaver_1.26.2-1/src/gs-lock-plug.c
{
        int num_processes;
        gchar *command = g_strdup_printf ("pidof %s | wc -l", name);
        FILE *fp = popen(command, "r");
```
This code is a duplicate of what is found in mate-session-manager (see <https://bugs.debian.org/1136529>), so the same resolution applies: the package must depend on procps.

A MR that adds procps as a dependency can be found at <https://salsa.debian.org/debian-mate-team/mate-screensaver/-/merge_requests/2>.

Regards,

--
Gioele Barabucci

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