Funny downstream bugs: we should have a category for these ones and never close them

[agaida]

Expected Behavior

Downstream Developers should read and understand the code or documentation before writing a bug.

Current Behavior

Some don't.

Possible Solution

Maybe introduce a short Q & A page in the wiki with questions like:

• Q: Do you really use glib2 and Qt together? A: Yes.
• Q: This is not a fault? A: Yes.
• Q: Really? A: Yes.

Steps to Reproduce (for bugs)

Read some bug trackers, like that: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=903836

Context

Handling downstream wrong claims.

[tsujan]

We can't make people read when they don't want to but yes, a FAQ will be useful (don't we have a FAQ)?

[simoniz0r]

If one want to get rid of pcmanfm-qt - why not, just use some other Qt based filemanager, dolphin comes to mind. Hmm, wait, i guess that would not be a really lightweight replacement.

krusader, lumina-fm... pcmanfm-qt isn't the only lightweight Qt file manager, man lol.
lumina-fm is just as light as pcmanfm-qt (and the replacement that I use):

Requires       : [23]
    libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.14)(64bit)
    libgcc_s.so.1()(64bit)
    libgcc_s.so.1(GCC_3.0)(64bit)
    libstdc++.so.6()(64bit)
    libstdc++.so.6(CXXABI_1.3)(64bit)
    libstdc++.so.6(GLIBCXX_3.4)(64bit)
    libQt5Core.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5Core.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libQt5Core.so.5(Qt_5.11)(64bit)
    libQt5Gui.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5Gui.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libQt5Widgets.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5Widgets.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libQt5Network.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5Network.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libQt5X11Extras.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5X11Extras.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libQt5Multimedia.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5Multimedia.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libQt5MultimediaWidgets.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5MultimediaWidgets.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    /bin/sh
    desktop-file-utils

pcmanfm-qt:

Requires       : [24]
    libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.14)(64bit)
    libstdc++.so.6()(64bit)
    libstdc++.so.6(CXXABI_1.3)(64bit)
    libstdc++.so.6(GLIBCXX_3.4)(64bit)
    libglib-2.0.so.0()(64bit)
    libstdc++.so.6(GLIBCXX_3.4.21)(64bit)
    libgobject-2.0.so.0()(64bit)
    libQt5Core.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5Core.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libQt5Core.so.5(Qt_5.11)(64bit)
    libQt5Gui.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5Gui.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libgio-2.0.so.0()(64bit)
    libQt5Widgets.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5Widgets.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libstdc++.so.6(GLIBCXX_3.4.18)(64bit)
    libQt5DBus.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5DBus.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libstdc++.so.6(CXXABI_1.3.5)(64bit)
    libxcb.so.1()(64bit)
    libQt5X11Extras.so.5()(64bit)
    libQt5X11Extras.so.5(Qt_5)(64bit)
    libfm.so.4()(64bit)
    libfm-qt.so.5()(64bit)

I guess my point here is 1) your statements are not really correct in that bug posting (lumina-fm is lightweight and has no glib2 deps) and 2) for me, pcmanfm-qt has been a relatively buggy (to the point where I find it worth replacing) desktop manager and file manager. I just recentlly had to delete my entire config file for it so that I could change directories.

[agaida]

@simoniz0r You really get the intention of the bug? If not - again: pcmanfm-qt is technically not a part of LXQt, was never and will never be - and that from the very beginning - beside of that it is our preferred choice for obvious reasons. And yes, one is free to chose whatever fit one needs. But that was not the point.

The point of this bug is that pcmanfm-qt uses glib and to some degree other GTK libs - and this is not a bug. Second, we working on it to eliminate the not really wished dependencies. But i will not consider that having these dependencies in former versions as a bug - it was/is annoying, nothing more, nothing less. Thats all. And i can partly understand that Jonas was not amused - but thats life.

[simoniz0r]

You really get the intention of the bug? If not - again: pcmanfm-qt is technically not a part of LXQt, was never and will never be

Then why is it set as the default desktop manager on every LXQt install that I've ever done?

[agaida]

because we think that we like it that way - thats all. And you are wrong here. I delivered my first LXQt release back in 2014 with pcmanfm as default.

[simoniz0r]

And you are wrong here. I delivered my first LXQt release back in 2014 with pcmanfm as default.

that I've ever done?

Oh, so I guess you must know that I've installed LXQt in 2014. Oh wait, that didn't happen.

You shipping pcmanfm-qt as a default app in every current LXQt install (it happens in the places where you guys have full control over the packaging) tells me that it's an LXQt application. You depending on it for xdg-open to work properly, for being a desktop manager, etc tells anyone even more that it's part of LXQt from any normal user's perspective.

[agaida]

i don't know how other distributions handle that - but the file manager is still interchangeble:

% LANG=C apt rdepends pcmanfm-qt
pcmanfm-qt
Reverse Depends:
  Depends: pcmanfm-qt-dbgsym (= 0.13.1~159-g0118972-2)
  Replaces: pcmanfm-qt-l10n (<< 0.11.1)
  Breaks: pcmanfm-qt-l10n (<< 0.11.1)
  Depends: pcmanfm-qt-dbgsym (= 0.13.0-1~siduction+1)
  Recommends: lxqt-session
  Depends: lxqt-core
  Breaks: pcmanfm-qt-l10n (<< 0.11.1~)
  Replaces: pcmanfm-qt-l10n (<< 0.11.1~)
  Depends: pcmanfm-qt-dbgsym (= 0.13.0-2)
  Breaks: pcmanfm-qt-l10n (<< 0.11.1)
  Recommends: lxqt-session
  Depends: lxqt-core
  Replaces: pcmanfm-qt-l10n (<< 0.11.1)
  Breaks: pcmanfm-qt-l10n (<< 0.11.1)
  Enhances: exe-thumbnailer
  Depends: lxqt-core
  Replaces: pcmanfm-qt-l10n (<< 0.11.1)

and the xdg-open assumtion is also clearly wrong:

open_lxqt()
{
    open_generic "$1"
}

But hey - maybe i don't understand some things.

[simoniz0r]

That's hardly valid as all of LXQt is replacable pretty much.

Also, when did they fix xdg-open upstream? open_generic is still a not at all good solution (pcmanfm-qt was actually a better solution, but still not up to par with other DEs).

[agaida]

oh - depending on their current working speed: somewhen

[agaida]

Additonal - our preferred open implementation would be something like this: https://github.com/lxqt/lxqt/issues/1298#issuecomment-399591113

[tsujan]

lumina-fm is just as light as pcmanfm-qt (and the replacement that I use):

That simply means you don't understand quality at all -- which isn't a surprise to me.

[simoniz0r]

That simply means you don't understand quality at all -- which isn't a surprise to me.

What are you even on about? pcmanfm-qt crashes much more frequently than lumina-fm for me.

Also, being less offensive might do you well.

[PCMan]

As the author of pcmanfm-qt, here are my two cents:

1. Pcmanfm-qt itself does not depend on any gtk+ libs. If it is, it's mostly added by packagers for various reasons.
2. It indeed relies heavily on glib, which is a non-UI librariy that is also used by systemd and udisks so you can never remove it. Glib != gtk+ and it has no gtk+ reps at all.
3. Using glib in qt is officially supported by qt. It has bugs but it works pretty well in this case. So why not?
4. pcmanfm-qt is the de facto default file manager but you are free to remove it. We prevent hard dependency on it by design. So users can choose what they prefer.
5. It has been there since day 1 of LXQt. That the first component I did for LXQt and it's also the beginning of all the joint effort between lxde and lxqt.

You are free to choose whatever you like anyways. Free software is all about freedom. If you think pcmanfm-qt is poor, helping us improve it is a very useful approach to make it better.

[agaida]

@tsujan - just reading your response to the debian bug - and all parties are right - it was my intention as the maintainer of the package to depend pcmanfm-qt on the libfm-modules for a reason: In the past years i heared complaints about pcmanfm and pcmanfm-qt not being able to handle things like smb etc.

After the 10th or 20th of these complaints the decision was to depend on the modules - with all pro's and con's because our users don't install this or even better do a:

apt install pcmanfm(-qt) --no-install-recommends

or more common

apt install $foo --no-install-recommends

and complain afterwards about missed functionality and matureness of LXQt. So i put in all the things that are important as dependency just to prevent false claims. It wasn't funny anymore to hear such complains as in "LXQt isn't ready for debian/stable, because of lacking basic functionality etc pp"

PS: And my life is better with just one not so happy user/developer than the other way around.

[tsujan]

@agaida Most users mistake GLib for GTK; I wanted to make it clear that we use GLib, not GTK.

As far as I know, the git libfm-qt doesn't depend on libfm anymore but Arch's PKGBUILD still has that dependency. I don't know what's recommended with libfm-qt in Debian. In Arch, I see nothing and that's bad: At least, all gvfs packages should be recommended, IMO.

Am I the only one that thinks libfm-qt doesn't depend on libfm anymore? Am I missing something?

[agaida]

yes, you missed something important - distributions have our latest release in their repositories (ok, i correct myself: should have :dark_sunglasses: ). And this is mostly not about the libfm-qt, it is about pcmanfm-qt. Some of the big rewrites was introduced after our last release and are the cause for bumping the soname ...

[tsujan]

OK.

BTW, it's still soon for the next release, mainly because of SMB problems and partly because we should test the recent changes more.

[agaida]

right