known issue with .deb package ("upstart" dependency)

[eli-darkly]

It's been brought to our attention that the .deb packages included in the release binaries (for instance, here) are not compatible with all Linux-based environments that use .deb packages. Specifically, running dpkg -i ld-relay_{some version & architecture}.deb may produce an error like "dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of ld-relay: ld-relay depends on upstart; however: Package upstart is not installed" (or: "Package upstart is not available, but is referred to by another package").

This problem is due to the current package build relying on upstart to provide the kind of service management functionality that would be provided by systemd in OSes that use systemd (launching the service automatically at startup, etc.). That decision was made long ago when Ubuntu did not fully support systemd. It is no longer appropriate since upstart is deprecated in Ubuntu (and already did not work in Debian). We are planning to revise the build to remove that dependency, and to make it work with systemd. The .rpm package for Red Hat was already using systemd.