Create linux-modules-extra-generic metapackage

[Clement Cherlin]

You're right about vmw_vmci and vmw_vsock, I mistook directory entries
in the archive for files.

I have revised the bug report to request that vmwgfx (and other
virtual graphics drivers) be moved to linux-modules.

Thank you very much, Stefan and Dimitri!

On Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 10:17 AM Dimitri John Ledkov
<dimitri.ledkov at canonical.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 3:41 PM Stefan Bader <stefan.bader at canonical.com> wrote:
> >
> > 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.
> >
>
> I agree with Stefan, historically we would include
> $virtualization-guest drivers in the linux-modules, i.e. things that
> are needed to have hardware support working inside Hyper-V,
> Virtualbox, Qemu/KVM, and similar. VMWare drivers fit that definition.
>
> > Regards,
> > -Stefan
> >
> > >
> > > Since it is a virtual machine, there is no need to install packages
> > > such as linux-firmware (761MB uncompressed). I would prefer to remove
> > > linux-firmware to reduce disk space and bandwidth usage, but
> > > linux-image-generic depends on it.
> > >
> > > I would remove linux-image-generic and rely on linux-image-virtual,
> > > but linux-image-virtual does not depend on
> > > linux-modules-extra-${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
> > >
> >
> > --
> > kernel-team mailing list
> > kernel-team at lists.ubuntu.com
> > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/kernel-team