Plasma,

Thanks for your analysis and care with this.

I prefer to resolve the first of your suggested patches by realigning more
closely with Debian's d/rules.

Mark

commit 2f09bfa62e597cbfb9385e2807c84db05cd68247
Author: Mark Hindley <mark@???>
Date: Mon Sep 29 15:05:08 2025 +0100

    d/rules: reduce unnecessary delta with Debian.

diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index 8bba501e..152405ee 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -80,6 +80,14 @@ override_dh_auto_install:
     dh_auto_install
     dh_auto_install --builddirectory=build-consolekit --destdir=debian/install/consolekit

+execute_before_dh_install:
+    # on Debian use sudo group; on Ubuntu, also allow the admin group for
+    # on Debian/Devuan use sudo group; on Ubuntu, also allow the admin group for
+    # historical reasons
+    if dpkg-vendor --is ubuntu; then \
+        install -m644 debian/49-ubuntu-admin.rules debian/tmp/usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d/; \
+    fi
+
 override_dh_install:
     dh_install \
     -plibpolkit-gobject-consolekit-1-0       \
@@ -88,9 +96,4 @@ override_dh_install:
     dh_install -a                           \
     -Nlibpolkit-gobject-consolekit-1-0

-    # on Debian/Devuan use sudo group; on Ubuntu, also allow the admin group for
-    # historical reasons
-    if dpkg-vendor --is ubuntu; then \
-        install -m644 debian/49-ubuntu-admin.rules debian/tmp/usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d/; \
-    fi
     dh_install