On Sat, 16 Sep 2017 13:47:58 +0100
Arnt Gulbrandsen <arnt@???> wrote:

> Arnt Karlsen writes:
> > ..which idea is worse then, keep having dbus interacting with
> > ssh-agent, or ripping out dbus of Devuan?
>
> Ripping it out looks like a lot of work, based on just a quick look
> at dpkg/status. A lot of nontrivial things to think about.

Perhaps not. In an earlier email I demonstrated a likelihood that my
Void Linux ssh-agent has absolutely no dependency or interaction with
dbus, and given that Void Linux is a rolling release, this is likely a
very modern version of ssh-agent. If the Void folks' ssh-agent has
absolutely no connection or even stub to dbus, then it's likely that
any connection is a compile time option, like --with-dbus or
--without-dbus.

[snip printer driver, which I'm not suggesting de-dbussing]

> $ grep 'Depends.*dbus' /var/lib/dpkg/status | wc -l
> 179
> $
>
> 179 tasks to do, and some of them difficult? That may be months of
> fulltime work. Dbus would have to be really very bad to justify that.

Dbus is pretty darn bad, and was bad before systemd was a gleam in
Poettering's eye:

http://troubleshooters.com/lpm/201202/201202.htm#_My_First_Escape_Attempt

NOTE: The preceding link will become functional later today.
Troubleshooters.Com was shut down for 5 days due to Hurricane Irma and
will fully be restored tonight.

But beyond that, I wasn't suggesting removal of dbus from everything.
For software designed from the ground up to be a promiscuous
communicator, like Gnome and KDE apps, something like dbus is
essential, so I spoze dbus is as good as anything. However, ssh-agent
is a nice, encapsulated little utility, so there's no reason I can see
to encumber it with dbus.

If I were to suggest de-dbussing, it would be only for ssh-agent.

SteveT

Steve Litt
September 2017 featured book: Manager's Guide to Technical
Troubleshooting Brand new, second edition
http://www.troubleshooters.com/mgr