libnotify4 on focal requires gnome-shell?

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 15:52:00 +0000, Justin Lloyd wrote:
>If this is intentional, is there a reasonable workaround to it?

Assuming this hard dependency of libnotify4 or gnome-shell actually
could be an optional dependency without rebuilding collectd using
different build flags, than simply build an empty dummy package for
gnome-shell or libnotify4 using equivs.

I'm doing it all the times, at least build empty gvfs and pulseaudio
dummy packages.

Make a file named "gnome-shell" with the following content:

Package: gnome-shell
Version: 2020:06-26-justin
Maintainer: Justin <justinl at arena.net>
Architecture: all
Description: Dummy package

Then run

$ equivs-build gnome-shell

and install the dummy package. Or directly build a dummy package for
libnotify4.

I'm not aware of any package that is broken, due to usage of faked gvfs
and pulseaudio packages. In my experiences gvfs and pulseaudio _always_
could be optional dependencies. However, the more worse, broken and
annoying dependencies are (see gvfs and pulseaudio) the more likely it
is, somebody makes those optional dependencies for absolutely no
sane reasons hard dependencies.

I can't comment on collectd and libnotify4. Maybe it's worth a test.