Hi.

The xserver-xorg-video-vmware package is one of the packages in the
Debian archive that should be proposed for installation when a given
hardware dongle is inserted or available.  Thanks to the appstream
system, this can now be announced in a way other tools can use and act
on.  I've written the isenkram system to ask the current user if
hardware specific packages should be installed when a new dongle is
installed or already present on a machine, and isenkram now uses
appstream as one source for hardware to package mappings.

You can read more about this on my blog,
<URL: http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html >.

Instructions on how to create the metadata XML file can be found in
<URL: https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines >.  There is also
<URL: https://wiki.debian.org/USB/GadgetSetup > with hints on how to set
up udev rules.

It would be great if you could add an appstream metainfo file to the
xserver-xorg-video-vmware package, with content similar to this:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <component>
   [...]
   <provides>
	<modalias>dmi:*:svnVMWare*:*</modalias>
   </provides>
  </component>

This should suggest xserver-xorg-video-vmware when DMI report that the
machine is a VMWare virtual machine.

If there are other hardware ids or kernel modules also supported by the
package, please add those too. :)

Control: tag -1 wontfix
That doesn't sound like something we'd want to manually maintain.

Cheers,
Julien

[Julien Cristau]

How come?  Do you expect the DMI values for VMWare virtual machines to
change often?  I have not seen it change ever.

The AppStream metadata should preferably go upstream to make sure it is
the same across all Linux distributions.

This:
is what I'm talking about.  I don't want to maintain this in the debian
package.

Cheers,
Julien

Control: tags -1 - wontfix + upstream

So the bug should be fixed in Debian but only via upstream, fixing the tags.

Here is an upstreamable patch to fix this.

diff --git a/debian/patches/1000-appstream-metainfo.patch b/debian/patches/1000-appstream-metainfo.patch
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..632babb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/debian/patches/1000-appstream-metainfo.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+Description: Added AppStream metainfo XML with hardware provide info.
+ This allow isenkram to propose this package when the virtual hardware
+ is present.
+Author: Petter Reinholdtsen
+Forwarded: no
+Last-Update: 2024-08-04
+---
+Index: xserver-xorg-video-vmware-13.3.0/org.x.video.vmware.metainfo.xml
+===================================================================
+--- /dev/null  1970-01-01 00:00:00.000000000 +0000
++++ xserver-xorg-video-vmware-13.3.0/org.x.video.vmware.metainfo.xml   2024-08-04 07:07:49.177086657 +0200
+@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
++<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
++<component>
++  <id>org.x.video.vmware</id>
++  <metadata_license>MIT</metadata_license>
++  <name>xserver-xorg-video-vmware</name>
++  <summary>X.Org X server -- VMware display driver</summary>
++  <description>
++    <p>This package provides the driver for VMware client sessions,
++    i.e. if Linux is running inside a VMware session.</p>
++    <p>This package is built from the X.org xf86-video-vmware driver
++    module.</p>
++  </description>
++  <url type="homepage">https://www.x.org</url>
++  <provides>
++    <modalias>dmi:*:svnVMWare*:*</modalias>
++  </provides>
++</component>
diff --git a/debian/patches/series b/debian/patches/series
index 30b4052..8e90d38 100644
--- a/debian/patches/series
+++ b/debian/patches/series
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
 0001-vmwgfx-fix-missing-array-notation.patch
+1000-appstream-metainfo.patch
diff --git a/debian/xserver-xorg-video-vmware.install b/debian/xserver-xorg-video-vmware.install
index daa64ce..4cf5bb1 100644
--- a/debian/xserver-xorg-video-vmware.install
+++ b/debian/xserver-xorg-video-vmware.install
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
 usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/*.so
 usr/share/man/man4/*
 usr/bin/vmwarectrl
+org.x.video.vmware.metainfo.xml usr/share/metainfo

The state of the git repository (no way to generate upstream tarball)
and the source .dsc (both inline patches and debian/patches/ patches)
made me unsure how to properly adjust the package, but I decided to use
the debian/patches/ approach to separate the change into a separate
file.

Is there more I can do to help upstream this change?  I do not know
how to reach upstream.  Any clues to spare there?

I am trying to get rid of the hardcoded list of hardware-package
mappings in the isenkram package, instead using only information from
AppStream, and xserver-xorg-video-vmware is one of the 48 remaining
packages left to fix.

You can propose a MR to https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-vmware

Cheers,
Emilio

The patch is now sent upstream.