Should we remove chromium-browser from the archive?

[Olivier Tilloy]

On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 8:30 PM Gunnar Hjalmarsson <gunnarhj at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Olivier!
>
> On 2022-02-08 19:33, Olivier Tilloy wrote:
> > The chromium-browser package has been a "transitional" package that
> > installs the chromium snap since Ubuntu 19.10. Full-fledged deb
> > packages are still being built for 18.04.
> >
> > The question of whether to remove this transitional package from the
> > archive altogether has come up, so I'm sharing it here to get insights
> > and feedback from a wider audience before making an informed decision.
> >
> > Some features of the deb package that are worth taking into account:
> >   - /usr/bin/{chromium-browser,chromedriver} symlinks to their snap counterparts
> >   - a postinst script that installs alternatives for x-www-browser and
> > gnome-www-browser (unfortunately snapd doesn't have any mechanism for
> > this yet)
> >   - a custom apport hook that collects additional information about the
> > snap and its dependencies
> >   - did I miss any other features?
>
> Can't tell, but those are important enough, aren't they?

Yes, they are indeed.


> Your message made me think of bugs like these:
>
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/1947600
>
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/1950550
>
> And today I had a reason to install xsane.
>
> $ apt-cache show xsane | grep Recommends
> Recommends: cups-client, firefox | www-browser
>
> As you see it pulled the Firefox .deb even if I have the Firefox snap
> installed.
>
> So as long as there is no other mechanism to make the system recognize
> the FF snap and/or the Chromium snap as a www-browser, I suppose we need
> such transitional packages. (Waiting for the FF equivalent.)

Definitely a strong argument in favour of keeping the package around.