[arch-dev-public] systemd - move to base group and expect it to be installed?

[Bartłomiej Piotrowski]

On 2017-09-12 19:58, Andreas Radke wrote:
> New filesystem/systemd packages in testing have changed the way we
> create system users/groups. That's done now via systemd itself or using
> a systemd hook. So every package that needs certain user/group existent
> or certain UID/GID to install its file will depend on systemd to be
> installed on the system.
> 
> Check https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/55492 - systemd is now part of
> base-devel.
> 
> I think it's not consequent not to move it to base group. It's the only
> init system we support and therefor should be expected to be installed
> on every Arch installation from now on. User/group creating packages
> will need it installed in any way.
> 
> Opinions?
> 
> -Andy
> 

My main problem with recent changes to filesystem package is that there
is no clear benefits of using sysusers to do the job. Can anyone
enlighten me, or is it a change for the sake of change? From top of my
head, it caused issues with pacstrapping with testing, dependency cycle,
OpenSSH and cups, and I'm certain I missed something. If the gain is
ditching few lines of bash from install scriplet, we have wrong priorities…

The fact that the base group is mostly irrelevant these days is another
subject. We should limit it to core utilities and systemd; also consider
making it a meta package. Assumption that JFS, logrotate or s-nail are
widely used on regular Arch systems is silly and because of the lack of
policy whether base is mandatory or not, it causes constant confusion on
the bug tracker.

Bartłomiej