In the effort to reduce the pidgin dependencies, I wrote a patch to
dynamically load libfarstream only if it is installed. I never coded
with GObjects and so only during the testing to finish the patch I
realized that there is no need to modify the code. Only the package
dependencies should be reworked. In fact libpurple depends on
libfarstream (855kB), that depends on the gstreamer plugins (65,5MB),
but they are dynamically loaded only if installed[1] and they are needed
only to make voice and video calls with Gtalk (only voice with finch).
I patched the libfarsteram package and tested it with pidgin on a Gtalk
account. No crash or errors reported and the voice/video calls menu
entries are disabled but visible. The farstream transmitters plugins
are loaded dynamically too, so there is no need to install gssdp,
gupnp, nice and soup libraries if they are not used.
I also patched the pidgin package to remove the gconf dependency, as it
is needed only with Gnome (that installs it) to get the automatic
configuration[2] for audio, video and url-handlers. Also the finch
package uses gconf for audio configuration, while the libpurple package
uses gconf for the proxy one. Finally finch does not require
pidgin-data (25,7MB), but it is used only if installed for sounds,
translations and the /etc/purple/prefs.xml file (that should go instead
in the libpurple package).
The patch attached should fix the bug, reducing by 2/3 the disk space
requirements for pidgin (36,9MB / 10 packages instead of 102,4MB / 78
packages) and by 9/10 for finch (9,1MB / 8 packages instead of
100,3MB / 77 packages). The depends fields are replaced with recommends
or suggests for the optional packages, conforming to the policy manual
rule 7.2. No breakage is excepted because since the 0.7.17 version of
Apt, the recommended packages are installed by default.
There are other packages that depend on libfarstream and that may need
to add the gstreamer plugins in the dependency fields (like empathy and
gajim) according to the changes, but I will provide patches later.
All the patches applies on the wheezy version, but the jessie packages
are affected too.
ciao
References:
1. http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/farstream-devel/2012-April/15.html
2. https://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/11191
Patches:
1. nogst: to be applied to the wheezy debian packages i386
2. backend_module: not useful, but included as reference (ver. 2.10.7)
diff -urN libfarstream/DEBIAN/control libfarstream-nogst/DEBIAN/control
--- libfarstream/DEBIAN/control 2012-04-08 01:48:13.0 +0200
+++ libfarstream-nogst/DEBIAN/control 2013-12-03 17:25:03.484908105 +0100
@@ -1,11 +1,13 @@
Package: libfarstream-0.1-0
Source: farstream
-Version: 0.1.2-1
+Version: 0.1.2-1+nogst
Architecture: i386
Maintainer: Debian Telepathy maintainers pkg-telepathy-maintain...@lists.alioth.debian.org
Installed-Size: 855
Pre-Depends: multiarch-support
-Depends: libc6 (= 2.7), libglib2.0-0 (= 2.31.8), libgssdp-1.0-3 (= 0.12.0), libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 (= 0.10.33), libgstreamer0.10-0 (= 0.10.33), libgupnp-1.0-4 (= 0.18.0), libgupnp-igd-1.0-4 (= 0.1.8), libnice10 (= 0.1.0), libsoup2.4-1 (= 2.4.0), libxml2 (= 2.6.27), gstreamer0.10-plugins-base (= 0.10.33), gstreamer0.10-plugins-good (= 0.10.29), gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad (= 0.10.17), gstreamer0.10-nice (= 0.1.0)
+Depends: libc6 (= 2.7), libglib2.0-0 (= 2.31.8), libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 (= 0.10.33), libgstreamer0.10-0 (= 0.10.33), libxml2 (= 2.6.27)
+Recommends: libgssdp-1.0-3 (= 0.12.0), libgupnp-1.0-4 (= 0.18.0), libgupnp-igd-1.0-4 (= 0.1.8), libnice10 (= 0.1.0), libsoup2.4-1 (= 2.4.0)
+Suggests: gstreamer0.10-plugins-base (= 0.10.33), gstreamer0.10-plugins-good (= 0.10.29), gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad (= 0.10.17), gstreamer0.10-nice (= 0.1.0)
Conflicts: libgstfarsight0.10-0
Replaces: libgstfarsight0.10-0
Section: libs
@@ -20,3 +22,10 @@
plugins.
.
This package provides the core Farstream library.
+ .
+ libnice10 is needed to use the nice and the raw udp transmitters and the
+ MSN Webcam plugin.
+ libgssdp-1.0-3, libgupnp-1.0-4, libgupnp-igd-1.0-4 and libsoup2.4-1 are needed
+ to use the raw udp transmitter.
+ GStreamer plugins are optional components that may be needed by the software
+ built with Farsteram.
diff -urN pidgin/DEBIAN/control pidgin-nogst/DEBIAN/control
--- pidgin/DEBIAN/control 2013-02-13 21:57:39.0 +0100
+++ pidgin-nogst/DEBIAN/control 2013-12-06 09:19:20.582410040 +0100
@@ -1,11 +1,11 @@
Package: pidgin
-Version: 2.10.6-3
+Version: 2.10.6-3+nogst
Architecture: i386
Maintainer: Ari Pollak a...@debian.org
Installed-Size: 2206
-Depends: pidgin-data (= 2.10.6), pidgin-data ( 2.10.6-z), libatk1.0-0 (= 1.12.4), libc6 (= 2.7), libcairo2 (= 1.2.4), libdbus-1-3 (= 1.0.2), libdbus-glib-1-2 (= 0.78), libfontconfig1 (= 2.9.0), libfreetype6 (= 2.2.1), libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (= 2.24.0), libgstreamer0.10-0 (= 0.10.10), libgtk2.0-0 (= 2.24.0), libgtkspell0 (= 2.0.10), libice6 (=
