The qemu package, and derived packages have a special maintenance workflow in order to support git based patching. Please use it in order to have changes you make be acceptable to the package maintainers. The qemu.spec file is generated from a qemu.spec.in template, so to make changes to the spec file (besides patch name or order changes), you'll need to edit the template. The patches included are inserted into the spec file by scripts described below. If you are not modifying any patches or their order, but just need to update the spec file from a changed template, run 'bash ./update_git.sh refresh'. If the set of patches is being modified, including their order, you will want to first run 'bash ./update_git.sh pkg2git', in order to get the current patch queue made available in a local git branch named frombundle. (qemu packaging now includes a "bundle of git bundles" stored as a package source file, which contains the "git version" of the package patches.) You will create an altered patch queue in the $GIT_BRANCH branch (see config.sh for actual name), and use the frombundle branch as a starting point (eg perhaps start by doing git reset --hard frombundle, then cherry-pick upstream patches from there). Once you have the patch queue ready to go run 'bash ./update_git.sh git2pkg' to update the bundle of bundles (bundles.tsr.xz file) as well as the spec and patch files. Additional Notes: ** SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT CURRENT STATUS *** The current status as of 12 Sep 2019 is that for this incarnation of qemu packaging, the old update_git.sh workflow is no longer supported, being suplanted with the workflow described above. THIS IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS. If it isn't working right, please contact Bruce Rogers . It isn't foolproof by a long shot! Also note that qemu now takes advantage of the MultiBuild feature of the Build Service. No longer do the qemu-linux-user and qemu-testsuite packages have build service links to the qemu package, but instead are generated straight from the main qemu spec file via the use of a _multibuild file which identifies those package variants. - Bruce Rogers *** END SPECIAL NOTE *** Patches which are from an upstream git repo should have the commit id recorded just below the Subject line (after a blank line) as follows: Git-commit: <40-char-sha-id> If a patch is anticipated to be shortly included in upstream repo, mark that fact by doing the above with 40 0's, which will flag it as needing to be updated in the near future. Bug or feature tracking identifiers should also be added to the patch similarly, using the abbreviations identified here: http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Packaging_Patches_guidelines#Current_set_of_abbreviations using the "Reference:" tag, with multiple entries comma separated. The ability to provide a conditional inclusion of a patch (eg based on architecture, is provided by using the "Include-If:" tag similarly, as follows: Include-If: %ifarch aarch64 This will cause the patch application in the spec file to be done as follows: %ifarch aarch64 %patch0013 -p1 %endif A trick worth noting is, if a given git tracked patch is to be applied in a way that can't be done in the normal patching section of the spec file, you can still include the patch, and use it by name with the patch program elsewhere in the spec file by doing something such as: Include-If: %if 0%{?patch-possibly-applied-elsewhere} (this variable will remain undefined in the spec file) And then elsewhere in spec file, the actual patch (eg specially-handled-change.patch) is referenced as, eg: patch -p1 < %_sourcedir/specially-handled-change.patch