Bug#983533: [vinagre] black screen when launching RDP session

[Mike Gabriel]

Package: src:vinagre
Severity: grave
Version: 3.22.0-8

For a while now, vinagre when running against FreeRDP >= 2.0.0 has
been broken in Debian. When launching an RDP session, the user sees a
GTK window with a black rectangle in the middle.

A fix proposed by FreeRDP upstream is
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/vinagre/-/commit/404a56a11469ef24a1df632847465030d81db091.patch

See:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/vinagre/-/merge_requests/12

However, the vinagre version in Debian will not be fixed after the
referenced patch (an adapted version of it for vinagre 3.22.0) has
been applied (I just tested that).

Let me know, if I can give any more input on this. I saw from other
open bugs that vinagre upstream is scarcely maintained. Does it make
sense to ship vinagre in Debian 11? If yes, let me know how I can help
fixing this issue.

Greets,
Mike

[Mike Gabriel]

Control: tags -1 patch

I have done more tests with vinagre. I have attached a .debdiff that
fixes Vinagre's connection initialization and gives me a working RDP
session.

Upstream authors of FreeRDP mentioned that Vinagre's way of using the
FreeRDP API is rather old and it should be reworked by Vinagre
upstream maintainers.

However, session startup now works, but maybe more flaws are ahead.

See attached .debdiff for the proposed fix (and ignore the patch that
was attached to my earlier post).

Mike

[Simon McVittie]

I have done more tests with vinagre. I have attached a .debdiff that fixes
Vinagre's connection initialization and gives me a working RDP session.

I suspect you might well now be Debian's foremost expert on Vinagre...

I notice that Ubuntu hirsute has a somewhat larger diff, including the two
patches that you applied, plus some more. It might be safer to go with the
same patchset they have?

smcv

[Mike Gabriel]

Hi Simon,

Post by Simon McVittie

I have done more tests with vinagre. I have attached a .debdiff that fixes
Vinagre's connection initialization and gives me a working RDP session.

I suspect you might well now be Debian's foremost expert on Vinagre...

;-)

Post by Simon McVittie
I notice that Ubuntu hirsute has a somewhat larger diff, including the two
patches that you applied, plus some more. It might be safer to go with the
same patchset they have?

Nope. I sense we should find a good mix of both patchsets. Shall I put
that on my list?

Mike

[Paul Gevers]

Hi all,

I saw from other open
bugs that vinagre upstream is scarcely maintained. Does it make sense to
ship vinagre in Debian 11?

I suspect there are people relying on it, but as you say, it's basically
unmaintained upstream. The latest version of src:meta-gnome3 drops it from
Depends down to Suggests, which I think is proportionate.

For reference: vinagre is a key package due to popcon, however, it *can*
easily be removed:

***@coccia:~$ dak rm --no-action -R --suite testing vinagre
Will remove the following packages from testing:

vinagre | 3.22.0-8 | source, amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, i386,
mips64el, mipsel, ppc64el, s390x

Maintainer: Debian GNOME Maintainers
<pkg-gnome-***@lists.alioth.debian.org>

------------------- Reason -------------------

----------------------------------------------

Checking reverse dependencies...
No dependency problem found.

Paul