LEAP 16.0: workaround for: unsupported graphic type 'spice'

English Virtualization
1

When you try to access Proxmox SPICE console (via *.vv launch file) it will just throw this error in LEAP 16.0:

unsupported graphic type 'spice'

While it works properly on LEAP 15.

It is caused by deliberate defect in virt-viewer package (with affected remote-viewer command): removed SPICE support (done by RedHat first and blindly followed by SUSE later). You can find more information on:

This suspicion is confirmed with following changelog entry in package virt-viewer-11.0-160000.2.2.x86_64.rpm:

* Fri May 23 2025 carnold@suse.com
- Disable spice for running on SLES16 (jsc#PED-12706)
  virt-viewer.spec

As workaround I installed Guix package manager (not described here) and simply did:

sudo zypper remove virt-viewer
guix install virt-viewer

It fixed problem for me - I use same strategy to restore missing packages in LEAP 16 (audacious, keepass) or replace borked unusable packages (wine with proper 32-bit app support or now virt-viewer with SPICE support).

2

@hpaluchpe:

It seems that, the answer is in the Mailing-List you referenced ā€“

I can hazard the guess to be the lack of participation by Red Hat or SUSE in SPICE development upstream to be the reason for SPICE being disabled in SLE.

  • BTW, itā€™s also disabled in Tumbleweed ā€¦

I suspect that, for whatever reason, the maintenance of the SPICE protocol has been stopped ā€¦
Also, the SPICE web site is currently not responding to any requests ā€“ at least from where Iā€™m sitting ā€“ <https://www.spice-space.org/>

3

@hpaluchpe use the Flatpak version of remote-viewer (org.virt_manager.virt-viewer) then?

4

Why? Is Flatpak excuse for knowingly shipping degraded/broken packages in SLE/LEAP 16?

It is like publishing Firefox package without CSS (or JavaScript) support and telling users to use Flatpak as ā€œfixā€. But whatā€™s the point to intentionally release such unusable package at first place?

What is making me really sad that all these packages (virt-viewer, 32-bit wine, audacious, keeepass, ā€¦) work perfectly in LEAP 15 - so there are no technical reasons for these regressions in case of LEAP 16, but ideological.

One my ask: why is big-tech so strongly pushing users towards Flatpak or Snap? There is easy answer: to put all maintenance burden on applicationā€™s authors and just profit from them. But this breaks balance (while using packages fairly shares maintenance burden between ā€œupstreamā€ authors and distribution vendors) so these volunteers (overloaded with reports that their Flatpak/Snap does not work in some distro) will simply run away sooner or later - collapsing whole open source ecosystem that worked so well more than 30 yearsā€¦

1 Like
5

I couldnā€™t agree more.
And unfortunately, they donā€™t realise ā€˜yetā€™ that they are sawing off the very branch (their job) they are sitting on.

6

I suspect the move to Cockpit and itā€™s ability to manage VMā€™s. If your Proxmox server has a cockpit bridge package then that could be used?

I see it will change themā€¦

Screenshot From 2026-05-17 09-03-24
Screenshot From 2026-05-17 09-03-241019Ɨ714 59.5 KB

7

Iā€™m sorry but I disagree with your ā€œsolutionā€ that is not fixing real problem.

I did it proper way: reenabled Spice support in virt-viewer package (it was trivial, see: https://src.opensuse.org/hpaluch-pil/virt-viewer/commit/06792c4e21c7c013f08d3613dbcc1d16bfec4777ae631fa7088f0a11ab0daa70) and published it in OBS.

I verified that my patch works on my LEAP16/Xfce with:

( source /etc/os-release && sudo zypper ar -f obs://home:hpaluch-pil:test/$VERSION_ID hp-test )
sudo zypper ref
sudo zypper in --oldpackage hp-test:virt-viewer

rpm -qi virt-viewer | grep -e Vendor -e VCS

  Vendor      : obs://build.opensuse.org/home:hpaluch-pil
  VCS         : https://src.opensuse.org/hpaluch-pil/virt-viewer#slfo-main

rpm -q --changelog virt-viewer | sed -n '1,/^$/p'

  * Thu May 28 2026 mail@redacted
  - force build with spice

The only problem is how to push that to ā€œupstreamā€ - official LEAP 16 repo, because it is in restricted SLFO repository. Fixing that package will require moving it from SLFO to OSSā€¦ Curious if @lkocman could help?

8

O yes:
As always my Id resolute in review but, tested Flatpack and(Not working):

 # remote-viewer

The program 'remote-viewer' can be found in following packages:
  * virt-viewer [ path: /usr/bin/remote-viewer, repository: openSUSE:repo-oss ]
  * virt-viewer [ path: /usr/bin/remote-viewer, repository: virtualization ]
  * virt-viewer [ path: /usr/bin/remote-viewer, repository: virtualization ]

Try installing with:
    sudo zypper install <selected_package>