Bug#810018: procps: Please (re)consider shipping procps pidof

[Craig Small]

On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 at 06:51, Gioele Barabucci <gioele at svario.it> wrote:

> while we try to reach consensus in #1131136 on the best way to remove
> the Essential bit from `sysvinit-utils`, I think we can focus on a
> simpler task: moving `pidof` from `sysvinit-utils` to `procps`.
>
I thought the Essential part had to happen before the switch the pidof part.
Looking at this plan, it seems this part could be done first.


> * No maintainer script uses `pidof` anymore (the 4 low-popcon remaining
> packages will be NMU'd soon; patches ready).
>
OK, when I checked a few months ago there were quite a lot. Most of them
should have been using pidofproc but they were present.
That means a lot of maintainer scripts changed recently.


> * The code snippets where pidof is used in these 94 packages can be
> inspected at [1].
>
They're reasonably simple calls here.

* Both implementations of `pidof` support these options, with the same
> semantics/output.
>
Agreed, I think -z is the main difference now.  I'm not 100% if that option
is useful anymore.

The plan:
>
 That seems ok to me (procps maintainer).

>
> Does this sound right? Is anything missing?
>
It does sound right, but I have a nagging feeling something is missed.

 - Craig
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