GUI applications writing garbage to stdout/stderr

[Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 11:22:57AM +0100, Marcel Oliver wrote:
> Hallo,
> 
> there is one more thing which I found really annoying after upgrading
> to F21.  I like to launch GUI applications from the command line (I
> know there is some debate on whether this habit makes me a target user
> of Fedora, but I am writing under the assumption that it might).
> 
> Many GUI applications write garbage to either stdout or stderr, making
> the terminal windows difficult to view and navigate.  I have seen this
> on earlier releases, too, but the volume being written and the number
> of applications affected has increased to the extent that it is
> becoming a real problem.
> 
> Some, like nemo, even keep writing messages during operation, which is
> very distracting as there is sudden movement in the corner of one's
> eye. 
> 
> Yes, I know that I could write, for example
> 
>   okular file.pdf &> /dev/null
> 
> but that somehow defeats the efficiency of the command line operation.
> 
> Some of the main culprints for me are nemo, evince, and okular; if I
> am go looking, I can probably find many more.  The only well-behaved
> application I know is libreoffice.
> 
> Are these considered bugs that I should file against the package?  Is
> there a policy that applies?
I think you should. I regularly file bugs against packages writing to
the console during boot, logging random things at
warning/error/critical/or higher syslog levels, which is not visible
during graphical boot but affects people booting in text mode or
looking at logs and they usually get fixed as any other bug. The issue
of things being dumped to the console is similar — usability of the
distribution for command-line usage.

When I run okular I see:

Connecting to deprecated signal QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QString,QString,QString)
kbuildsycoca4 running...
okular(16844) KMimeTypeRepository::parents: "/usr/share/mime/subclasses"  refers to unknown mimetype  "application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.binary.macroEnabled.12" 
okular(16844) KMimeTypeRepository::parents: "/usr/share/mime/subclasses"  refers to unknown mimetype  "application/vnd.ms-excel.addin.macroEnabled.12" 
okular(16844) KMimeTypeRepository::parents: "/usr/share/mime/subclasses"  refers to unknown mimetype  "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.slideshow.macroEnabled.12" 
okular(16844) KMimeTypeRepository::parents: "/usr/share/mime/subclasses"  refers to unknown mimetype  "application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.macroEnabled.12" 
okular(16844) KMimeTypeRepository::parents: "/usr/share/mime/subclasses"  refers to unknown mimetype  "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.presentation.macroEnabled.12" 
okular(16844) KMimeTypeRepository::parents: "/usr/share/mime/subclasses"  refers to unknown mimetype  "application/vnd.ms-word.template.macroEnabled.12" 
okular(16844) KMimeTypeRepository::parents: "/usr/share/mime/subclasses"  refers to unknown mimetype  "application/vnd.ms-excel.template.macroEnabled.12" 
okular(16844) KMimeTypeRepository::parents: "/usr/share/mime/subclasses"  refers to unknown mimetype  "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.template.macroEnabled.12" 
okular(16844) KMimeTypeRepository::parents: "/usr/share/mime/subclasses"  refers to unknown mimetype  "application/vnd.ms-word.document.macroEnabled.12" 
okular(16844) KMimeTypeRepository::parents: "/usr/share/mime/subclasses"  refers to unknown mimetype  "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.slide.macroEnabled.12" 
QInotifyFileSystemWatcherEngine::addPaths: inotify_add_watch failed: Nie ma takiego pliku ani katalogu
QFileSystemWatcher: failed to add paths: /home/zbyszek/.kde/share/config/activitymanager-pluginsrc

This is an issue. It either ends up on the terminal or in the logs. When
looking through logs to diagnose a problem this kind of garbage is very
annoying. Especially repeating the same message over and over should be
fixed.

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 12:00:49PM +0100, François Cami wrote:
> Quoting https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Staying_close_to_upstream_projects
> : "The Fedora Project focuses, as much as possible, on not deviating
> from upstream in the software it includes in the repository. " - and
> patching upstream software to not write to stdout or stderr would be
> such a change, IMHO.
>
> I would therefore file bugs at upstream bug report tools, not against
> Fedora packages.
> For instance, in evince's case, see
> https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evince/ReportingBugs
Nah, uses can file bugs in Fedora, maintainers will forward them upstream
if necessary.

Zbyszek