Package: vde2 Version: 2.3.2+r586-2.2 Severity: minor qemu package 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.
vde2 works with qemu-system emulation mode. You can Suggest either whole qemu-system and/or individual qemu-system-XXX (with XXX being arm, misc, mips, ppc, sparc, s390x and x86), but definitely not whole qemu. Also, qemu-kvm is now provided but one of the qemu-system packages mentioned above. It is still okay to list qemu-kvm in Suggests/Recommends/whatever, but the thing is that vde2 actually works with either or all of them. 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
