Implement drop-ins approach for xdg autostart files

[marmarek]

There were many troubles with automatically generated/modified /etc/xdg/autostart content. Just a few of them:

1. Interactive conflict resolution on debian upgrade (example); on Fedora new file is saved in .rpmnew and never used
2. Above fixed by implementing overlay directory (marmarek/qubes-core-agent-linux#12), which needs to be regenerated at each update
3. Such generator can be easily mislead

So instead of generation those files, implement drop-ins approach in qubes-session. And when upstream declare some standard for it, migrate there.

@nrgaway @adrelanos

[nrgaway]

On 27 August 2015 at 07:10, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki <
notifications@github.com> wrote:

There were many troubles with automatically generated/modified
/etc/xdg/autostart content. Just a few of them:

1. Interactive conflict resolution on debian upgrade (example
   https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Upgrading_Whonix_10_to_Whonix_11#interactive_dpkg_conflict_resolution_dialog_.2Fetc.2Fxdg.2Fautostart.2Fnm-applet.desktop);
   on Fedora new file is saved in .rpmnew and never used

This would not happen now with the current triggers since the originals are
never touched. Debian has had this functionality since last year.

1. Above fixed by implementing overlay directory (
   marmarek/qubes-core-agent-linux#12
   https://github.com/marmarek/qubes-core-agent-linux/pull/12), which
   needs to be regenerated at each update

2. Such generator can be easily mislead
   https://groups.google.com/d/topic/qubes-users/S6NZeuiP6cg/discussion

   This was due to the issue of the qubes/xdg directory being moved from
   /usr/share/qubes/xdg to /var/lib/qubes/xdg. There was also a typo when you
   changed the default path in qubes-desktop-install-files that was changed to
   /vat, not /var; fixed in more recent push.

Again, Debian has been using this feature for almost a yeat now without
issue until the qubes directory got moved.

So instead of generation those files, implement drop-ins approach in
qubes-session. And when upstream declare some standard for it
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91560, migrate there.

I guess we can see how they feel about that since there current solution is
doing what we do; drop an override into another directory which get read
first. The user can even override that further by placing a use override
in home .config/??/autostart. That's part of the XDG standard.

I am currently working on drop-in support for the mgmt-salt package since
they do not have such a feature and will contribute it upstream. Already
briefly discussed with developers and they tend to agree on the approach;
May be able to re-use that code for XDG.

[nrgaway]

On 27 August 2015 at 07:10, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki <
notifications@github.com> wrote:

There were many troubles with automatically generated/modified
/etc/xdg/autostart content. Just a few of them:

1. Interactive conflict resolution on debian upgrade (example
   https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Upgrading_Whonix_10_to_Whonix_11#interactive_dpkg_conflict_resolution_dialog_.2Fetc.2Fxdg.2Fautostart.2Fnm-applet.desktop);
   on Fedora new file is saved in .rpmnew and never used

This would not happen now with the current triggers since the originals are
never touched. Debian has had this functionality since last year.

1. Above fixed by implementing overlay directory (
   marmarek/qubes-core-agent-linux#12
   https://github.com/marmarek/qubes-core-agent-linux/pull/12), which
   needs to be regenerated at each update

2. Such generator can be easily mislead
   https://groups.google.com/d/topic/qubes-users/S6NZeuiP6cg/discussion

   This was due to the issue of the qubes/xdg directory being moved from
   /usr/share/qubes/xdg to /var/lib/qubes/xdg. There was also a typo when you
   changed the default path in qubes-desktop-install-files that was changed to
   /vat, not /var; fixed in more recent push.

Again, Debian has been using this feature for almost a yeat now without
issue until the qubes directory got moved.

So instead of generation those files, implement drop-ins approach in
qubes-session. And when upstream declare some standard for it
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91560, migrate there.

I guess we can see how they feel about that since there current solution is
doing what we do; drop an override into another directory which get read
first. The user can even override that further by placing a use override
in home .config/??/autostart. That's part of the XDG standard.

I am currently working on drop-in support for the mgmt-salt package since
they do not have such a feature and will contribute it upstream. Already
briefly discussed with developers and they tend to agree on the approach;
May be able to re-use that code for XDG.

[marmarek]

The less code in maintainer scripts the better. It easily breaks updates (see Whonix 10->11 case).
Just pushed implementation to autostart-dropins branch (both core and gui agent). Much simpler than the previous approach (diffstat: 198 insertions(+), 519 deletions(-)).

[marmarek]

The less code in maintainer scripts the better. It easily breaks updates (see Whonix 10->11 case).
Just pushed implementation to autostart-dropins branch (both core and gui agent). Much simpler than the previous approach (diffstat: 198 insertions(+), 519 deletions(-)).