FS#65355 - [akonadi] Make MariaDB optdepends instead of a hard dependency

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Chandradeep Dey (chandradeepdey) - Sunday, 02 February 2020, 19:24 GMT
Last edited by Antonio Rojas (arojas) - Monday, 03 February 2020, 12:07 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Packages: Extra
Status Closed
Assigned To No-one
Architecture All
Severity Medium
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

#32878 was closed with "MySQL is the suggested backend so our akonadi package will use it (and then require it)". #33400 #52200 #62243 were all closed as they appeared, though #62243 achieved something else.

* #32878 was 8 years ago. KDE TechBase states that MySQL and PostgreSQL are both supported without preference for a particular database. (https://techbase.kde.org/KDE_PIM/Akonadi#Which_DBMS_does_Akonadi_use.3F)
* The Wiki has a hacky note about installation without mariadb via --assume-installed. (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KDE#Akonadi)
* Packages like nextcloud have DBMS backends as optdepends. (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/any/nextcloud/)

It would be good to have both mariadb and postgresql as optdepends to akonadi instead of the way it currently is. Going the phonon way and introducing a akonadi-backend virtual package, as suggested in #32878, seemed a good solution as well.

Other links:
#32878 - https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/32878
#33400 - https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/33400
#52200 - https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/52200
#62243 - https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/62243
This task depends upon

Closed by  Antonio Rojas (arojas)
Monday, 03 February 2020, 12:07 GMT
Reason for closing:  Won't implement
Additional comments about closing:  See comment #1
Comment by nl6720 (nl6720) - Monday, 03 February 2020, 09:23 GMT
Unlike the other mentioned software, Akonadi doesn't just detect available DB backends and uses what's available, Akonadi uses the DB backend that was set at compile time (which defaults to MySQL).
This means that if you use the default, then you don't need to configure anything, but to use a different DB backend you will need to edit ~/.config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc before using akonadi. Even if mariadb was not a dependency of akonadi, you would still need to edit akonadiserverrc.
Comment by Martin Rys (C0rn3j) - Monday, 03 February 2020, 10:35 GMT
>Even if mariadb was not a dependency of akonadi, you would still need to edit akonadiserverrc.

Wouldn't it then be possible to mark both as optdepends and edit the wiki to say you need to install a DB backend, and if the DB backend of your choosing isn't MariaDB, that then you have to edit the config?

Nextcloud has a DB setup section on the wiki, which is more complicated than just editing a single variable as would be the case with akonadi
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Nextcloud#Database_setup
Comment by Chandradeep Dey (chandradeepdey) - Monday, 03 February 2020, 10:49 GMT
> Wouldn't it then be possible to mark both as optdepends and edit the wiki to say you need to install a DB backend, and if the DB backend of your choosing isn't MariaDB, that then you have to edit the config?
I was going to propose patching upstream or creating new packages. But this is a simpler and better solution to the problem. Thanks.
Comment by Antonio Rojas (arojas) - Monday, 03 February 2020, 12:07 GMT
> Nextcloud has a DB setup section on the wiki, which is more complicated than just editing a single variable as would be the case with akonadi
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Nextcloud#Database_setup

Installing a cloud server isn't really comparable to using a mail client, which is expected to work out of the box.

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