Package: virtualbricks Version: 1.0.2-1 Severity: minor qemu is a dummy metapackage which has no actual reason to exist. qemu is a dummy metapackage which has no actual reason to exist. Qemu provides 2 entirely different modes of operations, it is a system-level emulation, where qemu emulates whole (hardware) system with its own CPU, memory subsystem, peripherial devices, BIOS/firmware etc. This is qemu-system, or, with hardware assistance, qemu-kvm. And another mode, where it can run linux programs built for different architecture on another linux system, for example to run arm linux binaries on an x86 linux. This is qemu-user and variations.
virtualbricks enhances the first mode, i.e. system emulation, and has nothing to do with the second, linux-user, emulation of qemu. It is enough, I think, to Recommend/Ehnance qemu-kvm, -- which is qemu with hardware-assisted system emulation, which is almost-native (for a given CPU) variant. We in qemu added Provides: qemu-kvm for a few packages where it is appropriate, - for example, on x86_64 it is qemu-system-x86 package, on s390x it is the package with qemu-system-s390x binary (which again can do native emulation of a s390x system) and so on. Additionally you can Suggest or Recommend whole qemu-system - this is a meta-package which pulls in whole qemu system emulation, with all architectures it supports, but leaves the linux-user emulation alone. The goal is to remove `qemu' binary metapackage from Debian, because this package is not right, it is pulling whole qemu with all its modes of operations, - this is not what most people actually want, due to what's been said above. Thanks, /mjt
