Breaking init swtich: was Re: sysvinit_3.14-2_source.changes ACCEPTED into experimental

[Mark Hindley]

On Sun, Feb 23, 2025 at 11:31:28AM +0100, Matthias Geiger wrote:
> does this mean (as far as I understand it) if all packages Providing: init
> would have set Protected: yes that I could still switch e.g. openrc for
> runit ? If not, I agree that this should be documented.

I don't think apt or dpkg recognise a 'group' of Protected: yes packages with
common Provides. But it might be a solution to propose. As Sean Whitton pointed
out, Protected: yes is poorly documented and its intended usage unclear[1]

A side note is that the term 'init' is unhelpfully broad here (and is, for some,
getting broader!). I know we probably mean PID1+service startup. But Debian's
openrc uses sysvinit-core's /sbin/init as PID1 by default. So it is yet to be
clarified exactly which packages might/would/should be Protected: yes.

It is also worth noting that Luca has queued Protected: yes for systemd-sysv[2].

[1]  http://bugs.debian.org/872587

[2]  https://salsa.debian.org/systemd-team/systemd/-/commit/47c0a694b0a1f5adcb8c0357f0a0c6bbf6826fea

Mark