Bug 416647 – x11-themes/gnome-themes-standard overwrites the user set standard x11 cursor theme

• Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Christian Loosli 2012-05-19 15:37:23 UTC]

The x11-themes/gnome-themes-standard ebuild overwrites an existing /usr/share/cursors/xorg-x11/default symlink and therefore overwrites the user preferences without asking or any easy way of disabling this. 

As the theme is a dependency of some other packages, this might happen even though the user did not want it. 

The theme should imo respect already existing symlinks and not overwrite them. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Have a default symlink for your prefered x11 cursor set
2. Emerge gnome-themes-standard

Actual Results:  
The ebuild changes the symlink without asking the user, the default theme is now changed.

Expected Results:  
The ebuild respects already existing symlinks and doesn't overwrite them

[Comment 1 Alexandre Rostovtsev (RETIRED) 2012-05-21 05:23:34 UTC]

Any symlinks, files, or other entities that you manually create in /usr/share and that do not already belong to some package in portage are fair game to be overwritten at any time. If you want to protect a symlink from being overwritten by portage or an automated administrative tool, it needs to go under /usr/local.

I want to mark this as "resolved wontfix". @gnome, thoughts?

[Comment 2 Pacho Ramos 2012-05-21 08:32:44 UTC]

I think time ago the link was skipped to not overwrite it, but I am not sure :/

[Comment 3 Pacho Ramos 2012-07-08 10:38:39 UTC]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Any symlinks, files, or other entities that you manually create in
> /usr/share and that do not already belong to some package in portage are
> fair game to be overwritten at any time. If you want to protect a symlink
> from being overwritten by portage or an automated administrative tool, it
> needs to go under /usr/local.
> 
> I want to mark this as "resolved wontfix". @gnome, thoughts?

But I agree with this reasoning

[Comment 4 Pacho Ramos 2012-12-24 08:54:32 UTC]

*** Bug 448376 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Comment 5 Dustin C. Hatch 2013-01-25 16:23:46 UTC]

Why does the ebuild even set that symlink? I don't understand the assumption that just because I have this package installed that I don't want to use the default X11 cursor. Personally, I think the Adwaita cursor is ugly and prefer the stock cursor, but this behavior prevents me from doing that.

Please reconsider removing the src_install override that implements this.

[Comment 6 Pacho Ramos 2013-10-25 06:40:15 UTC]

*** Bug 489282 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***