On Tue, 18 Apr 2017 11:05:45 +1000 Kevin Ryde <user42_ke...@yahoo.com.a u> wrote: > Package: libxcursor1 > Version: 1:1.1.14-1+b4 > Severity: wishlist > > It'd be good to have an /etc/alternatives/x-cursor-theme choice which is > the standard cursor font, so that's available when other packages give > other themes. > > I struck this when adwaita-icon-theme a while ago incorporated its > cursor font into that package, with irritating cursor animations and > stuff. adwaita-icon-theme is dragged in by gtk and things. Setting > /etc/alternatives/x-cursor-theme to /dev/null returns to the standard > cursors, but perhaps that's not really the right way. > > I'm not sure whether an alternative would belong in libxcursor1 or some > other base package. It's ultimately libxcursor1 which reads chosen > cursors if I'm not mistaken, but maybe something else is responsible for > the paths.
Hi Kevin. if I understand right, you know how alternatives work and that they're controlled by the update-alternatives utility. We see what the normal alternatives for x-cursor-theme are with update-alternatives --display x-cursor-theme and can configure your preferred alternative for x-cursor-theme with upd ate-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme There are a handful of cursor-theme packages available, e.g. see apt-cache search cursor | grep theme Some others show up as icon-themes (e.g. your adwaita-icon-theme), apt-cache search icon-theme There is a "base" cursor theme package, xcursor-themes, that you could install. But you're asking for the core theme to be offered by a core X package, and xcursor-themes is optional. We could set this up in the postinst script of a X11 base package (libxcursor1 could be a reasonable choice, otherwise xorg, xserver-xorg or xserver-xorg-core), setting up a low priority alternative for x-cursor-theme pointing to /dev/null. But I think the proper solution is to install xcursor-themes, which does offer /etc/X11/cursors/core.theme as an alternative. It contains simply [Icon Theme] Inherits=core which is what you want to get the core cursor icons. So rather than having the appropriate base package set up a /dev/null alternative, I think it would be better for it to Depend/Recommend/Suggest: x-cursor-theme But even then it would not solve your problem: xcursor-themes is priority 30 while adwaita-icon-theme is priority 90. adwaita gets priority under the default auto configuration of the alternative. So what you want is to install the xcursor-themes package, and then set the alternative manually to core.theme using update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme Since making libxcursor1 Depend on xcursor-themes doesn't actually solve your problem (you need to configure the alternative manually anyway), I don't think any packaging changes are needed. It's a personal preference to prefer the core theme over adwaita. So I think we can close this bug. Drew