[Pkg-virtualbox-devel] Bug#762406: virtualbox: Please make the Python dependency optional

[Mert Dirik]

Package: virtualbox
Severity: wishlist

Dear Maintainers,

I want to use amd64 version of the Virtualbox package in my system but the
Python dependency makes it unpractical to install.

mert at debian:~$ apt-get -s --no-install-recommends install virtualbox:amd64
NOTE: This is only a simulation!
      apt-get needs root privileges for real execution.
      Keep also in mind that locking is deactivated,
      so don't depend on the relevance to the real current situation!
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 virtualbox:amd64 : Depends: python:amd64 (>= 2.7) but it is not going to be
installed
                    Depends: python:amd64 (< 2.8) but it is not going to be
installed
                    Depends: python2.7:amd64 but it is not going to be
installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

As you can guess, changing any of these python packages would result in
uninstalling
and/or replacing with half of packages in my system.

I'm aware that it is not actually the Virtualbox packages problem but the
Python ones,
but still it would be nice working around it and making this scenario possible.

I researched the reason of the dependency a bit and it seems like the reason is
for
providing some xpcom modules, according to #539445. I don't know if making
these
modules optional in some way and shifting the python dependency to apply only
for them
is possible/feasible but it would make Virtualbox a happy multiarch citizen in
my system :)


Best regards,




-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: amd64

Kernel: Linux 3.14-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)