[Vmware-package-maintainers] Bug#464915: vmware-package: useless error message when passed server linux client package

[Austin Clements]

Package: vmware-package
Version: 0.21
Severity: minor

This is a minor but annoying usability problem.  The VMWare Server
Linux client package available from VMWare's site comes as a zip that
contains four other archives, including the server console itself.
Unfortunately, when given this zip directly, make-vmpkg simply
complains that it doesn't recognize it and aborts.  I spent a long
time searching for VMware-server-console-1.0.4-56528.tar.gz on
VMWare's site before, on a whim, I looked inside the zip.

It would be better if make-vmpkg could at least recognize this file
and tell the user to unpack it.  It would be even better if it could
simply extract VMware-server-console-1.0.4-56528.tar.gz from it on its
own.

The exact name of the latest downloadable zip is
  VMware-server-linux-client-1.0.4-56528.zip
and its md5sum is
  010d808baad4a87ba5931e1e8ad06351

The desired file can easily be extracted with
  unzip VMware-server-linux-client-1.0.4-56528.zip VMware-server-console-1.0.4-56528.tar.gz

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-2-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages vmware-package depends on:
ii  bzip2                     1.0.3-7        high-quality block-sorting file co
ii  debhelper                 5.0.57         helper programs for debian/rules
ii  dpkg-dev                  1.14.7         package building tools for Debian
ii  fakeroot                  1.8.2          Gives a fake root environment
ii  file                      4.21-3         Determines file type using "magic"
ii  make                      3.81-3         The GNU version of the "make" util
ii  module-assistant          0.10.11.0      tool to make module package creati
ii  prelink                   0.0.20071009-1 ELF prelinking utility to speed up
ii  python                    2.4.4-6        An interactive high-level object-o

Versions of packages vmware-package recommends:
ii  libart-2.0-2            2.3.19-3         Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0             1.20.0-1         The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbz2-1.0              1.0.3-7          high-quality block-sorting file co
ii  libcairo2               1.4.10-1         The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libcairomm-1.0-1        1.4.2-1          C++ wrappers for Cairo (shared lib
ii  libcroco3               0.6.1-1          a generic Cascading Style Sheet (C
ii  libexpat1               1.95.8-4         XML parsing C library - runtime li
ii  libfontconfig1          2.4.2-1.2        generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6            2.3.5-1+b1       FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libglade2-0             1:2.6.2-1        library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0            2.14.2-1         The GLib library of C routines
ii  libglibmm-2.4-1c2a      2.14.1-0.1       C++ wrapper for the GLib toolkit (
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0       2.20.1-1         A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomecanvasmm-2.6-1c 2.20.0-3         C++ wrappers for libgnomecanvas2 (
ii  libgsf-1-114            1.14.7-1         Structured File Library - runtime 
ii  libgtk2.0-0             2.12.0-3         The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a       1:2.10.10-0.2    C++ wrappers for GTK+ 2.4 (shared 
ii  libpango1.0-0           1.18.3-1         Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpng12-0              1.2.15~beta5-3   PNG library - runtime
ii  librsvg2-2              2.18.2-1         SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libsexy2                0.1.11-2         collection of additional GTK+ widg
ii  libsexymm2              0.1.9-2          collection of additional gtkmm wid
ii  libsigc++-2.0-0c2a      2.0.17-2         type-safe Signal Framework for C++
ii  libview2                0.6.1-1          VMware's Incredibly Exciting Widge
ii  libx11-6                2:1.0.3-7        X11 client-side library
ii  libxau6                 1:1.0.3-2        X11 authorisation library
ii  libxcursor1             1:1.1.9-1        X cursor management library
ii  libxdmcp6               1:1.0.2-2        X11 Display Manager Control Protoc
ii  libxext6                1:1.0.3-2        X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxfixes3              1:4.0.3-2        X11 miscellaneous 'fixes' extensio
ii  libxft2                 2.1.12-2         FreeType-based font drawing librar
ii  libxi6                  2:1.1.3-1        X11 Input extension library
ii  libxinerama1            1:1.0.2-1        X11 Xinerama extension library
ii  libxml2                 2.6.30.dfsg-2    GNOME XML library
ii  libxrandr2              2:1.2.2-1        X11 RandR extension library
ii  libxrender1             1:0.9.4-1        X Rendering Extension client libra
ii  libxtst6                2:1.0.3-1        X11 Testing -- Resource extension 
ii  zlib1g                  1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-6 compression library - runtime

-- no debconf information