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  • Bug#1090384: xfce4: desktop environment metapackage should provide a po

    From Simon McVittie@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jul 9 14:10:01 2025
    Control: reopen -1

    Back in 2024, I wrote:
    As discussed on #1076728, there is a de facto expectation that each "good" >desktop environment will provide a polkit authentication agent that is >suitable for it, similar to the expectation for o.fd.Notifications.

    I've reported this as a bug in the xfce4 metapackage, but it might
    make sense to push it down into a "smaller", lower-level package like >xfce4-session (I am not familiar with the details of XFCE's design).

    This bug was closed by the upload of xfce-polkit, but I'm reopening it,
    for two reasons:

    1. "a polkit agent for XFCE exists in the archive" is not the same
    thing as "normal installations of the XFCE desktop include a
    polkit agent by default";
    2. xfce-polkit is available in unstable but will not be included in
    trixie, because it was only uploaded after the hard freeze had begun

    Please choose a suitable polkit agent and add it as a dependency, or at
    least as a Recommends.

    The release team indicated in #1108167 that it's too late for
    xfce-polkit to be added to trixie (it's in unstable but will not
    migrate). So I think the best solution to this for trixie would be for
    the xfce4 metapackage (or maybe xfce4-sesion?) to gain a Depends or
    Recommends on something like

    xfce-polkit | mate-polkit

    which would result in new trixie installations with XFCE getting
    mate-polkit, and new forky installations with XFCE getting xfce-polkit
    instead.

    Or you could choose a different polkit agent instead of mate-polkit if
    there is a better one - but whichever one is chosen, it must have suitable values for OnlyShowIn and NotShowIn to make it run under XFCE.

    mate-polkit seems to be OK for this purpose, because it only has NotShowIn=GNOME;KDE; and no OnlyShowIn, so it will be run under XFCE. It
    would probably be a good idea to talk to the MATE maintainers and make
    sure they are aware that XFCE in trixie will also be relying on their
    polkit agent.

    Many of the other polkit agents are specifically *not* suitable for this purpose: for example, lxpolkit has NotShowIn=...;XFCE;...; so it will
    not get run in an XFCE desktop environment, even if it happens to be
    installed.

    I am not an XFCE user myself, so I am not in a position to provide
    a tested patch or detailed support here, sorry.

    Thanks,
    smcv

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  • From Martintxo@21:1/5 to All on Thu Jul 10 11:00:01 2025
    Hello

    I install a amd64 machine with the Trixie installer yesterday. In the process I check the Xfce checkbox and leave the Gnome one. Then I end with a Xfce desktop.

    The Desktop is working fine, all apps but the synaptic menu entry, that not opens at all. I check for the policykit packages installed, and I realize that polkitd is started at boot, but there is not another policykit authentication agent runing. Check the packages installed and see that I had installed ukui-polkit!! And in the Xfce control center, in the session section there is'nt a checkbox for start ukui-polkit in the boot...

    So, as is stated in this bug report by Simon McVittie, I end on install mate-polkit and uninstall ukui-polkit. Reboot and now I have mate-polkit runing on boot, and synaptic app opens from the menu as expected. There is not need for make anything for it.

    So, yes, I think that Xfce desktop package must be a depend on mate-polkit for be released as stable with Trixie. Mybe this bug report must be a critical one?

    Many thanks for all your work and excuse my poor english. Greetings. Martintxo.

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  • From Peter Blackman@21:1/5 to Simon McVittie on Thu Jul 10 16:40:01 2025
    On 09/07/2025 13:08, Simon McVittie wrote:

    I think the best solution to this for trixie would be for the xfce4 metapackage (or maybe xfce4-sesion?) to gain a Depends or Recommends on something like

        xfce-polkit | mate-polkit

    which would result in new trixie installations with XFCE getting mate- polkit, and new forky installations with XFCE getting xfce-polkit instead.

    Agreed. mate-polkit works perfectly. Thanks for the suggestion.

    I've uploaded a fix to mentors
    https://bugs.debian.org/1109056

    As a DM, that is as far I can go.


    Cheers,
    Peter


    P.S.
    I've merged in the other duplicate bugs

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