[gentoo-user] Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[gentoo-user] Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Harry Putnam]

I didn't want to derail the ongoing thread about hal/xorg with this
question there.

Far as I remember I haven't done anything special concerning hal but
at some point hal disappeared.  And is not on my system anymore. 

I've always used and /etc/X11/xorg.conf file for starting X.
What I'm wondering from seeing this kind of topic frequently here is
if I'm running in some deprecated mode?

If my setup using no hal, and xorg.conf is going to become outdated
and stop working anytime soon?

Re: [gentoo-user] Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Mittwoch 04 November 2009, Harry Putnam wrote:
> I didn't want to derail the ongoing thread about hal/xorg with this
> question there.
> 
> Far as I remember I haven't done anything special concerning hal but
> at some point hal disappeared.  And is not on my system anymore.
> 
> I've always used and /etc/X11/xorg.conf file for starting X.
> What I'm wondering from seeing this kind of topic frequently here is
> if I'm running in some deprecated mode?
> 
> If my setup using no hal, and xorg.conf is going to become outdated
> and stop working anytime soon?
> 

no

but hal is going away soon.

Re: [gentoo-user] Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Alex Schuster]

Harry Putnam writes:

> Far as I remember I haven't done anything special concerning hal but
> at some point hal disappeared.  And is not on my system anymore.

Strange. Is hal still in your USE flags?
It is not really neded, but I think it's nice to have - maybe not for 
x.org, but for other things like automounting devices. Here's the list of 
my packages that need HAL:

wonko@weird ~ $ equery d hal
[ Searching for packages depending on hal... ]
app-cdr/k3b-1.0.5-r6 (hal? sys-apps/hal)
app-emulation/wine-1.1.12 (hal? sys-apps/hal)
app-misc/hal-cups-utils-0.6.19 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.10)
app-misc/hal-info-20090414 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.10)
gnome-base/gnome-keyring-2.26.3 (hal? >=sys-apps/hal-0.5.7)
gnome-base/gnome-mount-0.8-r1 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.8.1)
gnome-base/gnome-vfs-2.24.1 (hal? >=sys-apps/hal-0.5.7)
gnome-base/gvfs-1.2.3 (cdda? >=sys-apps/hal-0.5.10)
                      (hal? >=sys-apps/hal-0.5.10)
gnome-extra/nautilus-cd-burner-2.24.0 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.7)
kde-base/kdebase-kioslaves-3.5.10-r1 (hal? =sys-apps/hal-0.5*)
kde-base/solid-4.3.2 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.9)
media-gfx/gimp-2.6.4 (hal? sys-apps/hal)
media-libs/libgphoto2-2.4.6 (hal? >=sys-apps/hal-0.5)
media-sound/rhythmbox-0.11.6-r1 (hal? >=sys-apps/hal-0.5)
sys-fs/ntfs3g-2009.3.8 (hal? sys-apps/hal)
sys-power/pm-utils-1.2.5 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.10)
x11-base/xorg-server-1.6.3.901-r2 (hal? sys-apps/hal)
xfce-base/exo-0.3.105-r1 (hal? sys-apps/hal)
xfce-base/thunar-1.0.1 (hal? sys-apps/hal)


> I've always used and /etc/X11/xorg.conf file for starting X.
> What I'm wondering from seeing this kind of topic frequently here is
> if I'm running in some deprecated mode?
> 
> If my setup using no hal, and xorg.conf is going to become outdated
> and stop working anytime soon?

I don't think so. HAL will be replaced anyway by devicekit. You should be 
safe to keep your xorg.conf, as many people here seem to do.

	Wonko

[gentoo-user] Re: Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Harry Putnam]

Alex Schuster <wonko@wonkology.org> writes:

> Strange. Is hal still in your USE flags?
> It is not really neded, but I think it's nice to have - maybe not for 
> x.org, but for other things like automounting devices. Here's the list of 
> my packages that need HAL:

I didn't tell quite all of it.  Hal was not in my useflags (by my
hand) until this last upgrade (two days ago).

In the course of events I saw hal pop up in the output of 
emerge -vuDp world.  I'd already noticed hal was not on my system for
a while now... so quickly added `-hal' to /etc/make.conf.

So from here on, its no mystery why I don't have hal.  But before the
last upgrade, I don't recall having done anything explicit about hal
to remove it.  And had gone through several upgrades without hal
popping up.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Dale]

Harry Putnam wrote:
> Alex Schuster <wonko@wonkology.org> writes:
>
>   
>> Strange. Is hal still in your USE flags?
>> It is not really neded, but I think it's nice to have - maybe not for 
>> x.org, but for other things like automounting devices. Here's the list of 
>> my packages that need HAL:
>>     
>
> I didn't tell quite all of it.  Hal was not in my useflags (by my
> hand) until this last upgrade (two days ago).
>
> In the course of events I saw hal pop up in the output of 
> emerge -vuDp world.  I'd already noticed hal was not on my system for
> a while now... so quickly added `-hal' to /etc/make.conf.
>
> So from here on, its no mystery why I don't have hal.  But before the
> last upgrade, I don't recall having done anything explicit about hal
> to remove it.  And had gone through several upgrades without hal
> popping up.
>
>   

It may be the profile you are using.  It may not have hal enabled for
some reason therefore nothing was pulling it in. 

Me, if everything is working fine, I would leave hal out.  I have
seriously considered adding -hal to make.conf and seeing what happens. 
It just sort of tastes bad after all the hal problems I have had.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Dale schrieb:

> Me, if everything is working fine, I would leave hal out.  I have
> seriously considered adding -hal to make.conf and seeing what happens. 
> It just sort of tastes bad after all the hal problems I have had.
> 
> Dale

Why do I think of HAL in "2001" ... ?

Think twice, you don't want a "I'm sorry, Dale (!), I'm afraid I can't
do that..."

;-)

Stefan

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Dale]

Stefan G. Weichinger wrote:
> Dale schrieb:
>
>   
>> Me, if everything is working fine, I would leave hal out.  I have
>> seriously considered adding -hal to make.conf and seeing what happens. 
>> It just sort of tastes bad after all the hal problems I have had.
>>
>> Dale
>>     
>
> Why do I think of HAL in "2001" ... ?
>
> Think twice, you don't want a "I'm sorry, Dale (!), I'm afraid I can't
> do that..."
>
> ;-)
>
> Stefan
>
>   

Didn't they kill hal 2001 before that movie was over?  It's been a while
since I saw it.

If mine said that to me, I'd put a bullet through it.  Most likely
because it would scare the stuffins out of me and I would think it was
possessed or something.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:24:44 -0600, Dale wrote:

> Didn't they kill hal 2001 before that movie was over?

Just put it to sleep, so they could wake it up in 2010.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Of course it's not your day,

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Maxim Wexler]

In plenty of time for 2012 ;)

On 11/5/09, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:24:44 -0600, Dale wrote:
>
>> Didn't they kill hal 2001 before that movie was over?
>
> Just put it to sleep, so they could wake it up in 2010.
>
>
> --
> Neil Bothwick
>
> Of course it's not your day,
>

Re: [gentoo-user] Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Mike Edenfield]

On 11/4/2009 10:51 AM, Harry Putnam wrote:
> I didn't want to derail the ongoing thread about hal/xorg with this
> question there.
>
> Far as I remember I haven't done anything special concerning hal but
> at some point hal disappeared.  And is not on my system anymore.

I believe that some packages in portage recently masked off the "hal" 
USE flag (GNOME stuff, maybe?), so if those were the only packages 
relying on hal it might have gone away.

> I've always used and /etc/X11/xorg.conf file for starting X.
> What I'm wondering from seeing this kind of topic frequently here is
> if I'm running in some deprecated mode?
>
> If my setup using no hal, and xorg.conf is going to become outdated
> and stop working anytime soon?

The answer is a solid "who the heck knows".

If it works for you now, don't mess with it.  Wait for the 
Xorg/hal/devkit/whatever situation to settle down before you go making 
any drastic changes.

Some people, like myself, are running X with hal and no .conf file and 
it works like a champ.  I get better hardware detection with hal, 
especially on my laptop, than I ever got manually.

Other people have had problems with hal and Xorg not detecting their 
hardware at all.  What you are "frequently" seeing is those people 
reminding everyone, every time the topic come up, that you don't *need* 
to use the new hal-ified way if it doesn't work for you.

All of this is probably moot because hal itself is going away and being 
replaced by devicekit, but not yet because devicekit isn't quite ready. 
  What the configuration situation will be under devicekit I have no 
idea, though I would hope having no configuration file would still be a 
goal for the devkit team.


--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[Jesús Guerrero]

On Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:25:49 -0500, Mike Edenfield <kutulu@kutulu.org>
wrote:
> On 11/4/2009 10:51 AM, Harry Putnam wrote:
>> I didn't want to derail the ongoing thread about hal/xorg with this
>> question there.
>>
>> Far as I remember I haven't done anything special concerning hal but
>> at some point hal disappeared.  And is not on my system anymore.
> 
> I believe that some packages in portage recently masked off the "hal" 
> USE flag (GNOME stuff, maybe?), so if those were the only packages 
> relying on hal it might have gone away.
> 
>> I've always used and /etc/X11/xorg.conf file for starting X.
>> What I'm wondering from seeing this kind of topic frequently here is
>> if I'm running in some deprecated mode?
>>
>> If my setup using no hal, and xorg.conf is going to become outdated
>> and stop working anytime soon?
> 
> The answer is a solid "who the heck knows".
> 
> If it works for you now, don't mess with it.  Wait for the 
> Xorg/hal/devkit/whatever situation to settle down before you go making 
> any drastic changes.

I'd just save all the config files for future reference, specially if you
are going to keep your hardware for a long time. For the rest, use whatever
works for you right now. I remind you also of quickpkg, in case you need to
test and revert packages quickly.

> Some people, like myself, are running X with hal and no .conf file and 
> it works like a champ.  I get better hardware detection with hal, 
> especially on my laptop, than I ever got manually.
> 
> Other people have had problems with hal and Xorg not detecting their 
> hardware at all.  What you are "frequently" seeing is those people 
> reminding everyone, every time the topic come up, that you don't *need* 
> to use the new hal-ified way if it doesn't work for you.

This whole hal stuff has always been a mess. Yes, it works for a few
persons out of the box. But for those that don't, it has brought a lot of
trouble. I've never suggested anyone ditching hal when it worked for him or
her. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But I can't help but to think that
I've never liked hal because it's a monsters that doesn't solve the
problems that it was created to solve, except in a few cases out of pure
chance. I still don't know what's so amazing about the hal automounting
stuff, when a simple udev rule can do exactly the same without tainting all
my software. Now hal has proven to be what a lot of people knew it was from
the beginning, just think of the lot of wasted hours, and the other lot
that will be wasted to remove all the metastases on every single program it
has touched with its tentacles. Hopefully a big part of it would be a
conversion rather than a complete rewrite.

However, I am sure that they've learn from the experience, and that's a
good thing, it's useless to talk now about *what* could have been done and
*how*, we have to look forward, everyone including those that just like me
do not like hal. It's the kind of thing that happens when we integrate
non-mature technologies into every single product under the sun: if they
succeed they are visionaries. If they don't, then everyone complains, human
nature I guess. :) 
-- 
Jesús Guerrero

Re: [gentoo-user] Another angle on hal/xorg thread

[pk]

Harry Putnam wrote:

> If my setup using no hal, and xorg.conf is going to become outdated
> and stop working anytime soon?

I seriously doubt the xorg.conf is going away in the foreseeable future
so I wouldn't worry. I haven't heard any of the developers on xorg mail
list talking about this either (I may have missed an email or two but...).

Best regards

Peter K