Create linux-modules-extra-generic metapackage

[Stefan Bader]

On 14.02.22 15:07, Clement Cherlin wrote:
> Greetings, all.

Hi Clement,

> 
> I run an Ubuntu desktop as a VMWare virtual machine client.
> 
> The linux-modules-extra-${VERSION}-generic package contains several
> critical VMWare drivers (vmwgfx, vmw_vmci, vmw_vsock), so I need to
> keep it installed and updated.

I think the real issue is that the VMware drivers are not part of the 
linux-modules package which is always installed when installing any linux-image.
The linux-modules-extra contains those drivers (at least that was the intend) 
which are not relevant for any VM. Amongst those are the wireless drivers and 
those likely rely on linux-firmware a lot.
At least for 20.04/Focal the vmw_vmci and vmw_vsock drivers are part of modules. 
But not vmwgfx which we should fix. Maybe you can double check which VMware 
drivers you need and where those come from (dpkg -S <module path>). Then the bug 
report should be changed to request moving any VMware drivers in modules-extra 
into modules. Which would allow you to switch to linux-virtual get rid of 
linux-firmware.

Regards,
-Stefan

> 
> Since it is a virtual machine, there is no need to install packages
> such as linux-firmware (761MB uncompressed). I would prefer to remove
> linux-firmware to reduce disk space and bandwidth usage, but
> linux-image-generic depends on it.
> 
> I would remove linux-image-generic and rely on linux-image-virtual,
> but linux-image-virtual does not depend on
> linux-modules-extra-${VERSION}-generic, and there is no
> linux-modules-extra-generic metapackage. I would have to manually
> install linux-modules-extra-${VERSION}-generic every time I update the
> kernel.
> 
> There are already linux-modules-extra-aws, linux-modules-extra-gcp and
> linux-modules-extra-gke metapackages which fulfill the same purpose
> for their respective linux-modules-extra-${VERSION}-xxx packages. It
> would be very helpful to me (and, I'm sure, many others) to complete
> the set with a linux-modules-extra-generic metapackage that would
> depend on the latest linux-modules-extra-${VERSION}-generic.
> 
> I created https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1960633/
> and was told that this is a better place than Launchpad to discuss new
> packages.
> 
> Thank you for your consideration.
> 
> Cheers,
> Clement Cherlin
> 

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