From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1M5O8M-00083P-LA for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 16 May 2009 17:57:18 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 464D6E0647; Sat, 16 May 2009 17:57:16 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ew0-f165.google.com (mail-ew0-f165.google.com [209.85.219.165]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E3A1CE0647 for ; Sat, 16 May 2009 17:57:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy9 with SMTP id 9so3122241ewy.34 for ; Sat, 16 May 2009 10:57:15 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:from:to:subject:date :user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:message-id; bh=7bIcqdh1Y7EO6DSJ51DDO/A9zCtLhRG/aKK7cc7bweA=; b=tuWXeGNw0OYTMeXQJE1yB4ijxf50TKDlhVlkDusgzUVsCl8VK0uOuCMoc/weeOBs6U XqnL1ld0oBSnWew3FwjtUkN/DBrkW8++eqMamrFSCm4xyky2tdoflv9VLFiEiEns1Wze Ftxy9SSrD1Xbk+tstz/hXajEhiwy0rzHAL+CI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition :message-id; b=QRgtikyap4zuKNc5ubQUp5qCR6mmgBnhk+TY62FTsV66OxQIoiugjCNfFh5HVQav8p gXFAksDj1lcwk6enAF52rVV5zi2EcS2hEjqTQBqyBTr5B2I4qIgoKYfLhadRC5tMpDTa 34EEmRqazfj0D3KSI1mdzcEYofoEaTVPHYjEs= Received: by 10.210.130.13 with SMTP id c13mr711912ebd.49.1242496635346; Sat, 16 May 2009 10:57:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nazgul.localnet (196-210-153-19-rrdg-esr-2.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.210.153.19]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 10sm3425175eyd.42.2009.05.16.10.57.13 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Sat, 16 May 2009 10:57:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: New xorg.conf with x11-base/xorg-server-1.5.3-r5 Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 19:55:50 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.11.3 (Linux/2.6.29-gentoo-r1; KDE/4.2.3; x86_64; ; ) References: <200904070939.57495.michaelkintzios@gmail.com> <200905152254.03209.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> <4A0EF469.6070308@coolmail.se> In-Reply-To: <4A0EF469.6070308@coolmail.se> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200905161955.50549.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: 0c668dee-5fac-423c-87c8-eeb25d18af55 X-Archives-Hash: b74d27b3e50053588b5b724eb0c64401 On Saturday 16 May 2009 19:14:17 pk wrote: > Alan McKinnon wrote: > > I'm not sure who's criticizing DeviceKit, but it isn't me :-) > > I guess it was me... :-) > > I find this thread interesting: > http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2009-May/045561.html > > ...especially this: > http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2009-May/045574.html > > Which seems like a much more sane way... to me. I don't know what BSD > and other platforms use (instead of Udev) but I'm sure one could come up > with a common API. Sometimes you have to make several horrendous errors to know what to not do= =20 and thereby deduce what you should do - the only version 3 rule of thumb :-) =46rom threads involving the hal maintainers I get the idea that the proble= m is=20 not so much the idea of hal, but rather it's implementation. And then there= 's=20 those fdi files... As I see it, at the bottom of the stack you have a kernel and at the top a= =20 user space app (the X server will do for an example). Plug in a USB device= =20 that the app can use, and the kernel needs to make a node in /dev for it if= =20 it's not already there. The kernel should not be interrogating the device f= or=20 all possible info - that is expensive - and doesn't need to. It only needs= =20 enough info to know what driver, major and minor numbers to use. X OTOH, ca= n=20 successfully use much more info. If you have a 19 button mouse, it would li= ke=20 to know and could even use it as a one-handed keyboard (extreme example). S= o=20 the current model uses udev as the interface to the kernel's nodes and HAL = as=20 the interface to exactly what hardware you have. Seems pretty sane for the= =20 most usual use case. At some point in the stack you will need the OS-depend= ant=20 part, my guess is the best place is between hal and udev. Only Linux uses=20 udev, but all OSes use something in that spot. And if not, they have static= =20 nodes. Meanwhile we have an acknowledged problem with hal - it's too complex, too= =20 many things have been shoved into it that were never catered for in the=20 design, configuration is horrific - and the devs are having their usual=20 spirited debate about how best to approach a solution. This is perfectly=20 normal and perfectly healthy =2D-=20 alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com