[gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Peter Ruskin]

Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven 
xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and the 
mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and 
single-right-click works a double-click.

'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with 
xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.

-- 
Peter
========================================================================
Gentoo Linux: Portage 2.2_rc30			kernel-2.6.27-gentoo-r8
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+	gcc(GCC): 4.1.2
KDE: 3.5.9					Qt: 3.3.8b
========================================================================

Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Justin]

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Peter Ruskin schrieb:
> Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven 
> xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and the 
> mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and 
> single-right-click works a double-click.
> 
> 'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with 
> xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.
> 
Any reason to use -hal?


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Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Peter Ruskin]

On Monday 13 April 2009, Justin wrote:
> Peter Ruskin schrieb:
> > Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven
> > xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and
> > the mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and
> > single-right-click works a double-click.
> >
> > 'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with
> > xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.
>
> Any reason to use -hal?

I don't like hal.  I prefer the traditional linux way of mounting 
stuff when I want to.

-- 
Peter
========================================================================
Gentoo Linux: Portage 2.2_rc30			kernel-2.6.27-gentoo-r8
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+	gcc(GCC): 4.1.2
KDE: 3.5.9					Qt: 3.3.8b
========================================================================

Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Michael P. Soulier]

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On 13/04/09 Peter Ruskin said:

> > Any reason to use -hal?
> 
> I don't like hal.  I prefer the traditional linux way of mounting 
> stuff when I want to.

On my workstation, so do I, but xorg 1.5 works fine if you follow the
instructions and rebuild the relevant input drivers. 

msoulier@anton:~$ equery list | grep x11-drivers/
x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-173.14.15
x11-drivers/xf86-input-keyboard-1.3.2
x11-drivers/xf86-input-mouse-1.4.0

Mike
-- 
Michael P. Soulier <msoulier@digitaltorque.ca>
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a
touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."
--Albert Einstein

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Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Dale]

Justin wrote:
> Peter Ruskin schrieb:
>   
>> Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven 
>> xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and the 
>> mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and 
>> single-right-click works a double-click.
>>
>> 'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with 
>> xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.
>>
>>     
> Any reason to use -hal?
>
>   

Probably so it would work again.  I did the same thing but my GUI
started crashing so I downgraded xorg to get back to something that works. 

OP, I'm with you on not liking the new xorg.  It should look something
like this.  ++++++++++++1.  ;-)

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> Justin wrote:
>> Peter Ruskin schrieb:
>>
>>> Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven
>>> xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and the
>>> mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and
>>> single-right-click works a double-click.
>>>
>>> 'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with
>>> xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.
>>>
>>>
>> Any reason to use -hal?
>>
>>
>
> Probably so it would work again.  I did the same thing but my GUI
> started crashing so I downgraded xorg to get back to something that works.
>
> OP, I'm with you on not liking the new xorg.  It should look something
> like this.  ++++++++++++1.  ;-)
>
> Dale
>
> :-)  :-)

There's a lot of us voting ++++++++++++1 today I think.

How do things like this go stable when they aren't stable, tested and
not causing problems. (rhetorical...)

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Paul Hartman]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Justin wrote:
>>> Peter Ruskin schrieb:
>>>
>>>> Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven
>>>> xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and the
>>>> mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and
>>>> single-right-click works a double-click.
>>>>
>>>> 'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with
>>>> xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Any reason to use -hal?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Probably so it would work again.  I did the same thing but my GUI
>> started crashing so I downgraded xorg to get back to something that works.
>>
>> OP, I'm with you on not liking the new xorg.  It should look something
>> like this.  ++++++++++++1.  ;-)
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-)
>
> There's a lot of us voting ++++++++++++1 today I think.
>
> How do things like this go stable when they aren't stable, tested and
> not causing problems. (rhetorical...)

I must be lucky because I've been using it since it hit ~amd64 and
using the HAL/fdi way and it works fine for me. :)

Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Dale]

Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Justin wrote:
>>     
>>> Peter Ruskin schrieb:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven
>>>> xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and the
>>>> mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and
>>>> single-right-click works a double-click.
>>>>
>>>> 'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with
>>>> xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Any reason to use -hal?
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> Probably so it would work again.  I did the same thing but my GUI
>> started crashing so I downgraded xorg to get back to something that works.
>>
>> OP, I'm with you on not liking the new xorg.  It should look something
>> like this.  ++++++++++++1.  ;-)
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-)
>>     
>
> There's a lot of us voting ++++++++++++1 today I think.
>
> How do things like this go stable when they aren't stable, tested and
> not causing problems. (rhetorical...)
>
> - Mark
>
>
>   

I'm not a dev by any means but this is my thoughts.  Before releasing
xorg-server, update the xorgcfg or xorgconfig commands to deal with a
lot of this, at least get you to where you have a basic keyboard and
mouse.  You may not be able to scroll for instance but you can click and
such.  Then people can restart their GUI and know that they can at least
have the keyboard and mouse.  This may could be done with eselect or
something too.  I think since it is a xorg thing, they should be able to
do this themselves.

I have heard a LOT of people complaining about how complicated the hal
.fdi files are.  Those need to be explained a lot more too.  Also, most
of those files should be included in hal and well tested.  They should
also be named in such a way that people can figure them out from a
console for example.  I know I didn't have the benefit of a GUI when I
was going through all this mess. 

I suspect that with a few more weeks of people fine tuning this, it
would have been much easier.  Right now, since I can't ssh in or
anything, I'm not even considering trying it again.

Just my thoughts.

Dale

:-)  :-)

[gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> There's a lot of us voting ++++++++++++1 today I think.
>>
>> How do things like this go stable when they aren't stable, tested and
>> not causing problems. (rhetorical...)
> 
> I must be lucky because I've been using it since it hit ~amd64 and
> using the HAL/fdi way and it works fine for me. :)

Same here.  All is working perfectly (or almost perfectly; see crappy 
ATI Catalyst drivers) for months.  Linux is getting better and the X.Org 
updates are playing a major part.

Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Jacques Montier]

Paul Hartman a gentiment tapote:
> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>>     
>>> Justin wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Peter Ruskin schrieb:
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven
>>>>> xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and the
>>>>> mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and
>>>>> single-right-click works a double-click.
>>>>>
>>>>> 'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with
>>>>> xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> Any reason to use -hal?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Probably so it would work again.  I did the same thing but my GUI
>>> started crashing so I downgraded xorg to get back to something that works.
>>>
>>> OP, I'm with you on not liking the new xorg.  It should look something
>>> like this.  ++++++++++++1.  ;-)
>>>
>>> Dale
>>>
>>> :-)  :-)
>>>       
>> There's a lot of us voting ++++++++++++1 today I think.
>>
>> How do things like this go stable when they aren't stable, tested and
>> not causing problems. (rhetorical...)
>>     
>
> I must be lucky because I've been using it since it hit ~amd64 and
> using the HAL/fdi way and it works fine for me. :)
>
>
>   
Xorg-server-1.5, hal and evdev stuff work fine for me with x86.
Two lucky men on that list :-)

--
Jacques

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Mike Edenfield]

On 4/13/2009 12:55 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> Paul Hartman wrote:
>> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> There's a lot of us voting ++++++++++++1 today I think.
>>>
>>> How do things like this go stable when they aren't stable, tested and
>>> not causing problems. (rhetorical...)
>>
>> I must be lucky because I've been using it since it hit ~amd64 and
>> using the HAL/fdi way and it works fine for me. :)
>
> Same here. All is working perfectly (or almost perfectly; see crappy ATI
> Catalyst drivers) for months. Linux is getting better and the X.Org
> updates are playing a major part.

I've never had any problems with HAL or the new X that I didn't cause 
myself.  (e.g. enabling modesetting in the kernel by accident, blindly 
copying FDI files from the intarwebs without noticing that the hal 
package already included then, completely failing to read the 
update-your-drivers warning, etc).  In other words, exactly the same 
thing that happened to old-X when you didn't pay attention to what you 
are doing, happens to new-X when you don't pay attention to what you are 
doing.

On the other hand, for the first time since I started putting Linux on 
my laptops, I have (with zero effort on my part) a working Synaptics 
touchpad with actual Synaptics features AND X recognizes my hot-plugged 
USB mouse.

HAL++.

--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 9:46 AM, Paul Hartman
<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Justin wrote:
>>>> Peter Ruskin schrieb:
>>>>
>>>>> Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven
>>>>> xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and the
>>>>> mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and
>>>>> single-right-click works a double-click.
>>>>>
>>>>> 'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with
>>>>> xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Any reason to use -hal?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Probably so it would work again.  I did the same thing but my GUI
>>> started crashing so I downgraded xorg to get back to something that works.
>>>
>>> OP, I'm with you on not liking the new xorg.  It should look something
>>> like this.  ++++++++++++1.  ;-)
>>>
>>> Dale
>>>
>>> :-)  :-)
>>
>> There's a lot of us voting ++++++++++++1 today I think.
>>
>> How do things like this go stable when they aren't stable, tested and
>> not causing problems. (rhetorical...)
>
> I must be lucky because I've been using it since it hit ~amd64 and
> using the HAL/fdi way and it works fine for me. :)
>
>

My experience with this one is that I *thought* it was working fine
and then I found out it wasn't. Just because X comes up doesn't mean
everything is working. If I use the default hald/evdev/no xorg.conf
setup as discussed in the upgrade guide then X runs but mythfrontend
segfaults. If I go back to an old xorg.conf file from a previous
release of xorg then mythfrontend doesn't segfault.

Just my experience so far,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[CJoeB]

Mike Edenfield wrote:
> On 4/13/2009 12:55 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> Paul Hartman wrote:
>>> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> There's a lot of us voting ++++++++++++1 today I think.
>>>>
>>>> How do things like this go stable when they aren't stable, tested and
>>>> not causing problems. (rhetorical...)
>>>
>>> I must be lucky because I've been using it since it hit ~amd64 and
>>> using the HAL/fdi way and it works fine for me. :)
>>
>> Same here. All is working perfectly (or almost perfectly; see crappy ATI
>> Catalyst drivers) for months. Linux is getting better and the X.Org
>> updates are playing a major part.
>
> I've never had any problems with HAL or the new X that I didn't cause
> myself.  (e.g. enabling modesetting in the kernel by accident, blindly
> copying FDI files from the intarwebs without noticing that the hal
> package already included then, completely failing to read the
> update-your-drivers warning, etc).  In other words, exactly the same
> thing that happened to old-X when you didn't pay attention to what you
> are doing, happens to new-X when you don't pay attention to what you
> are doing.
>
> On the other hand, for the first time since I started putting Linux on
> my laptops, I have (with zero effort on my part) a working Synaptics
> touchpad with actual Synaptics features AND X recognizes my
> hot-plugged USB mouse.
I'm up and running.  I'm one of those people who doesn't have a really
strong technical background - anything I've learned I've learned by
"guess and by God", by reading and with the help of this list.  I
struggled a bit, even though I followed the "Migration to X.org server
1.5" document.  I couldn't get X to start even though I recompiled the
kernel and nvidia drivers.  I tried not using my xorg.conf file and
finally on a lark, tried running Xorg -configure, which gave me a new
xorg.conf file.  When I ran the command to check to see if the new
xorg.conf file was going to work, I got a grey screen with an X in the
middle.  When I killed X, I saw an error message about my Microsoft
Sidewinder joystick.  So, on a whim, I rebuilt the kernel, enabling
joysticks, but not specifying a joystick type.  When I rebooted, x
started just fine - no problems with my cordless mouse, keyboard, or
touchpad and my joystick works.  So, as they say, "perseverance reaps
rewards".

Regards,

Colleen

-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org

Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[darren kirby]

quoth the Paul Hartman:
>
> I must be lucky because I've been using it since it hit ~amd64 and
> using the HAL/fdi way and it works fine for me. :)

HAL method working just fine for me as well, upgraded yesterday. I know 
nothing of fdi files or the inner workings of X, I just followed the upgrade 
guide, and it worked without a hitch.

-d
-- 
darren kirby :: Part of the problem since 1976 :: http://badcomputer.org
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..."
- Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972

[gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[7v5w7go9ub0o]

Dale wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Justin wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Peter Ruskin schrieb:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven 
>>>>> xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and
>>>>>  the mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and
>>>>>  single-right-click works a double-click.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with 
>>>>> xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> Any reason to use -hal?

Simplicity - get it going without hal, then bring in hal after
everything works.

> 
> I'm not a dev by any means but this is my thoughts.  Before releasing
>  xorg-server, update the xorgcfg or xorgconfig commands to deal with
>  a lot of this, at least get you to where you have a basic keyboard 
> and mouse.

After reading the upgrade guide, it seemed clear to me that my first
attempt would be without hal, and without my old xorg.conf.

It initially crashed because of some erroneous opengl softlinks
(bugzilla already notified); correcting those using familiar Xorg.log
resulted in x coming up nicely. I then played with my old xorg.conf 'til
it worked well with the new xorg.server.

I have not yet added hal; seems like unnecessary complexity at this
point - I don't know how it will make life better.

As a newbie, had I started with hal and my old xorg.conf, I'd likely
still be fooling with it; too many balls in the air.

My suggestion: start simple and safe, and add the "new and powerful"
complexity as a follow up - explaining why the marginal increase in
"stuff" is worth it's overhead, how it will make things better.

HTH

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Mike Edenfield]

On 4/13/2009 3:50 PM, 7v5w7go9ub0o wrote:

> I have not yet added hal; seems like unnecessary complexity at this
> point - I don't know how it will make life better.

The major benefit of hal is for people who don't actually *have* an 
"old" xorg.conf.  In most cases, the X server can do a better job than a 
user at detecting and configuring the video hardware, while hal can do a 
better job than a user at detecting and configuring input hardware.

This means that, "out of the box" a clean X installation has a decent 
chance of working with zero configuration, at least sufficiently to get 
you running well enough to tweak.  It also means that, as the specifics 
of the hal FDI database improves, you will automatically pick up 
improvements from upstream without needing to modify your configuration.

If you have a working X setup, then "replacing" it with hal may not 
provide much in the way of benefits.  But the same argument can be made 
just on the decision to upgrade to 1.5.3 -- if your current version 
"works", why the motivation to upgrade?  If its just to have the "latest 
and greatest" -- well that's hal.

--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[gibboris]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 03:50:09PM -0400, 7v5w7go9ub0o wrote:
> Dale wrote:
> After reading the upgrade guide, it seemed clear to me that my first
> attempt would be without hal, and without my old xorg.conf.
>
> It initially crashed because of some erroneous opengl softlinks
> (bugzilla already notified); correcting those using familiar Xorg.log
> resulted in x coming up nicely. I then played with my old xorg.conf 'til
> it worked well with the new xorg.server.
>
> I have not yet added hal; seems like unnecessary complexity at this
> point - I don't know how it will make life better.
>
> As a newbie, had I started with hal and my old xorg.conf, I'd likely
> still be fooling with it; too many balls in the air.
>
> My suggestion: start simple and safe, and add the "new and powerful"
> complexity as a follow up - explaining why the marginal increase in
> "stuff" is worth it's overhead, how it will make things better.
>
> HTH

I'm trying to follow this philosophy which appears more difficult than I
primary though.
1) I don't want hal, one more daemon running only to... spot /dev/input/*,
from what I understand xf86-input-* does this pretty well. I won't
unplug my mouse and so want to keep my xorg simple conf.
2) Anyway, I tried to make use of evdev instead of the *deprecated*
mouse and kbd drivers but...
3) evdev without hal replaced well my mouse driver (for the moment I
just replaced /dev/input/mice by /dev/input/event2 in the mouse section)
4) for the keyboard it's far less simple : if I switch to evdev, I
cannot define the Xkb{Variant,Model,..} in xorg.conf so :
stuck with the 'kbd' driver.

I believed gentoo users would be more sceptic when it comes to make a
new daemon mandatory ;)
For the new GNU/linux-Xorg installations, of course hal is a nice thing !

(Any advice to use evdev, define a keyboard layout,model,variant without
having to install hal and its <con<fi<gu>r>ation>files and daemon ?)

Raph

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 01:08:23 +0200, gibboris@gmail.com wrote:

> I believed gentoo users would be more sceptic when it comes to make a
> new daemon mandatory ;)

How can hal be mandatory when it is controlled by a USE flag? :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Virtue is it's own punishment.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 14 April 2009 01:08:23 gibboris@gmail.com wrote:
> I'm trying to follow this philosophy which appears more difficult than I
> primary though.
> 1) I don't want hal, one more daemon running only to... spot /dev/input/*,
> from what I understand xf86-input-* does this pretty well. I won't
> unplug my mouse and so want to keep my xorg simple conf.
> 2) Anyway, I tried to make use of evdev instead of the deprecated
> mouse and kbd drivers but...
> 3) evdev without hal replaced well my mouse driver (for the moment I
> just replaced /dev/input/mice by /dev/input/event2 in the mouse section)
> 4) for the keyboard it's far less simple : if I switch to evdev, I
> cannot define the Xkb{Variant,Model,..} in xorg.conf so :
> stuck with the 'kbd' driver.
>
> I believed gentoo users would be more sceptic when it comes to make a
> new daemon mandatory ;)

You need to complain to the X.org developers about that. It's them pushing hal 
into the X server, not gentoo.

Do keep in mind that like slackware, gentoo devs like to stick with upstream 
as much as possible.
 
-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Dale]

gibboris@gmail.com wrote:
>
> I'm trying to follow this philosophy which appears more difficult than I
> primary though.
> 1) I don't want hal, one more daemon running only to... spot /dev/input/*,
> from what I understand xf86-input-* does this pretty well. I won't
> unplug my mouse and so want to keep my xorg simple conf.
> 2) Anyway, I tried to make use of evdev instead of the *deprecated*
> mouse and kbd drivers but...
> 3) evdev without hal replaced well my mouse driver (for the moment I
> just replaced /dev/input/mice by /dev/input/event2 in the mouse section)
> 4) for the keyboard it's far less simple : if I switch to evdev, I
> cannot define the Xkb{Variant,Model,..} in xorg.conf so :
> stuck with the 'kbd' driver.
>
> I believed gentoo users would be more sceptic when it comes to make a
> new daemon mandatory ;)
> For the new GNU/linux-Xorg installations, of course hal is a nice thing !
>
> (Any advice to use evdev, define a keyboard layout,model,variant without
> having to install hal and its <con<fi<gu>r>ation>files and daemon ?)
>
> Raph
>
>
>   

There is another thread here that someone posted to that had the same
issue.  He worked out a way to use a keyboard layout from what I
understand.  You may want to see if you can find that and follow his
lead.  It would be nice if you two had the same keyboard and could share
config files.  I can't recall for sure but I think he has xorg with the
hal part turned on.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Mike Edenfield]

gibboris@gmail.com wrote:

> 1) I don't want hal, one more daemon running only to... spot /dev/input/*,
> from what I understand xf86-input-* does this pretty well. I won't
> unplug my mouse and so want to keep my xorg simple conf.

Hal does a lot more than just monitor /dev/input for you. 
It's a framework for providing consolidated and consistent 
access to *all* hardware information on your system. 
Gnome's automounting, for example, relies on hal to let it 
know when a new device was plugged in, what mount point its 
on, what type of device it is, etc.  The vendor database of 
FDI files includes information about everything from 
batteries to power management to keyboards to rf kill 
switches.

And really, how much simpler an xorg.conf can you get than 
by deleting 2/3 of it?

> 2) Anyway, I tried to make use of evdev instead of the *deprecated*
> mouse and kbd drivers but...
> 3) evdev without hal replaced well my mouse driver (for the moment I
> just replaced /dev/input/mice by /dev/input/event2 in the mouse section)
> 4) for the keyboard it's far less simple : if I switch to evdev, I
> cannot define the Xkb{Variant,Model,..} in xorg.conf so :
> stuck with the 'kbd' driver.

There's nothing wrong with continuing to use the old 
drivers.  Nothing about hal requires you to switch to 
evdev... and nothing about evdev requires to you use hal :)

The various non-Linux OS's supported by Xorg won't even have 
the proper kernel support for evdev, so the "old" keyboard 
and mouse drivers will probably be around for a long time. 
They are only "deprecated" in the sense that the Linux 
generic input layer exists at all.

> I believed gentoo users would be more sceptic when it comes to make a
> new daemon mandatory ;)

Well,  it's clearly not *mandatory* because you can just 
turn it off with -hal :)

Having said that, hal is exactly the kind of thing I would 
expect Gentoo users to flock to: its powerful, flexible, 
extensible, configurable, and it's the new cutting-edge 
stuff from the upstream vendors.  Before it went offline, 
the Gentoo wiki was easily the most informative place on the 
web to find information about hal.  I would have predicted 
hal going mainsteam on Gentoo years ahead of Red Hat or 
Debian.

Also, just for the record, hal isn't by any stretch of the 
imagination a "new" daemon.  Its been a USE option for 
Gentoo's gnome-vfs package since Gnome 2.8, in 2004.

> (Any advice to use evdev, define a keyboard layout,model,variant without
> having to install hal and its <con<fi<gu>r>ation>files and daemon ?)

Unless you have a general aversion to using XML for anything 
(which I understand, if tend to disagree with), the FDI 
syntax is pretty straightfoward.  That's even without the 
abundance of sample code that ships with hal.  You basically 
need to know two tags: match and merge.  In this case:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<deviceinfo>
   <device>
     <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keys">
       <merge key="input.x11_driver" 
type="string">keyboard</merge>
     </match>
   </device>
</deviceinfo>

goes into /etc/hal/fdi/policy/keyboard_driver_ftw.fdi and 
restart hal.  Since hal lets you "merge" arbitrary keys to 
its database, Xorg will also look for any 
input.x11_options.foo keys, replacing everything that went 
into xorg.conf.

---Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[gibboris]

Hello,
about the *mandatory* it was a bad expression, I  should have said :
'make two new daemons mandatory IF you want to follow the modern-move' :)
Of course the 'hal' useflag is such a gentoo nice thing !

I did the xorg+hal switch, but I forgot that hald make use of dbus
(I would dreamed about Xorg only asking hal advises once at boot instead having fluxbox honoured by 2 more daemons) anyway, I moved away the xorg.conf and
all works fine now ... except my fonts.
(can I fully get rid of this xorg.conf "Files Section" by putting
the-right-thing in my ~/.xinitrc ? which means how to globally *register*
new fonts for the server by a client)

After some trace :
- /usr/sbin/hald just makes a tiny poll each 15 seconds.
- hald-addon-storage polls my dvd drive each 2 seconds (I should change
that... or remove it (even if that's still less than a simple ipager))
- dbus seems quiet (blessed)
- hald-addon-input is far more expensive : reacts to each key pressed
  but not to the mouse moves.
  I don't know if it's a kind of wrapper for evdev or if it polls the
  /dev/input/event ... uselessly
But, I'll gave those daemons a chance for the moment.

Thank for your influence all

Raph

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 08:34:00PM -0400, Mike Edenfield wrote:
> gibboris@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> 1) I don't want hal, one more daemon running only to... spot /dev/input/*,
>> from what I understand xf86-input-* does this pretty well. I won't
>> unplug my mouse and so want to keep my xorg simple conf.
>
> Hal does a lot more than just monitor /dev/input for you. It's a 
> framework for providing consolidated and consistent access to *all* 
> hardware information on your system. Gnome's automounting, for example, 
> relies on hal to let it know when a new device was plugged in, what mount 
> point its on, what type of device it is, etc.  The vendor database of  
> FDI files includes information about everything from batteries to power 
> management to keyboards to rf kill switches.
>
> And really, how much simpler an xorg.conf can you get than by deleting 
> 2/3 of it?
>
>> 2) Anyway, I tried to make use of evdev instead of the *deprecated*
>> mouse and kbd drivers but...
>> 3) evdev without hal replaced well my mouse driver (for the moment I
>> just replaced /dev/input/mice by /dev/input/event2 in the mouse section)
>> 4) for the keyboard it's far less simple : if I switch to evdev, I
>> cannot define the Xkb{Variant,Model,..} in xorg.conf so :
>> stuck with the 'kbd' driver.
>
> There's nothing wrong with continuing to use the old drivers.  Nothing 
> about hal requires you to switch to evdev... and nothing about evdev 
> requires to you use hal :)
>
> The various non-Linux OS's supported by Xorg won't even have the proper 
> kernel support for evdev, so the "old" keyboard and mouse drivers will 
> probably be around for a long time. They are only "deprecated" in the 
> sense that the Linux generic input layer exists at all.
>
>> I believed gentoo users would be more sceptic when it comes to make a
>> new daemon mandatory ;)
>
> Well,  it's clearly not *mandatory* because you can just turn it off with 
> -hal :)
>
> Having said that, hal is exactly the kind of thing I would expect Gentoo 
> users to flock to: its powerful, flexible, extensible, configurable, and 
> it's the new cutting-edge stuff from the upstream vendors.  Before it 
> went offline, the Gentoo wiki was easily the most informative place on 
> the web to find information about hal.  I would have predicted hal going 
> mainsteam on Gentoo years ahead of Red Hat or Debian.
>
> Also, just for the record, hal isn't by any stretch of the imagination a 
> "new" daemon.  Its been a USE option for Gentoo's gnome-vfs package since 
> Gnome 2.8, in 2004.
>
>> (Any advice to use evdev, define a keyboard layout,model,variant without
>> having to install hal and its <con<fi<gu>r>ation>files and daemon ?)
>
> Unless you have a general aversion to using XML for anything (which I 
> understand, if tend to disagree with), the FDI syntax is pretty 
> straightfoward.  That's even without the abundance of sample code that 
> ships with hal.  You basically need to know two tags: match and merge.  
> In this case:
>
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
> <deviceinfo>
>   <device>
>     <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keys">
>       <merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">keyboard</merge>
>     </match>
>   </device>
> </deviceinfo>
>
> goes into /etc/hal/fdi/policy/keyboard_driver_ftw.fdi and restart hal.  
> Since hal lets you "merge" arbitrary keys to its database, Xorg will also 
> look for any input.x11_options.foo keys, replacing everything that went  
> into xorg.conf.
>
> ---Mike
>

Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Peter Ruskin]

On Monday 13 April 2009, Peter Ruskin wrote:
> Well, I did the upgrade at last, with -hal and my proven
> xorg-config, and the result is unusable.  I use kde-3.5.9 and the
> mouse doesn't work right - right-click has no effect and
> single-right-click works a double-click.
>
> 'demerge' came to the rescue and now I'm happily back with
> xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6.

OK, so now I've tried 1.5.3 three times in total on this machine and 
once on another similar machine (Asus A8N-SLI PCI-Express 
motherboard an nVidia GeForce 7600GT).

My latest attempt was with hal and evdev and no xorg.conf: no video 
at all and no access to VTs; so I stopped xdm by sshing in then put 
back the original xorg.conf, started xdm and then I had a screen 
again.  However, the mouse was as unusable as on my first attempt.

Now I've reverted back to 1.3.0 and have this in package.mask:

# Keep x11-base/xorg-server-1.3.0
~x11-base/xorg-server-1.5.3
=x11-libs/libpciaccess-0.10.5
=x11-drivers/xf86-video-fbdev-0.4.0
=x11-drivers/xf86-input-mouse-1.4.0
=x11-drivers/xf86-input-joystick-1.4.0
=x11-libs/libXrender-0.9.4
=x11-proto/renderproto-0.9.3


-- 
Peter
========================================================================
Gentoo Linux: Portage 2.2_rc30			kernel-2.6.27-gentoo-r10
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+	gcc(GCC): 4.1.2
KDE: 3.5.9					Qt: 3.3.8b
========================================================================

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Michael P. Soulier]

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On 13/04/09 Mike Edenfield said:

> Having said that, hal is exactly the kind of thing I would expect Gentoo 
> users to flock to: its powerful, flexible, extensible, configurable, and 
> it's the new cutting-edge stuff from the upstream vendors.  Before it went 
> offline, the Gentoo wiki was easily the most informative place on the web 
> to find information about hal.  I would have predicted hal going mainsteam 
> on Gentoo years ahead of Red Hat or Debian.

I would have predicted the opposite. Gentoo users are obviously control freaks
who drive cars with standard transmissions and build their own computers. Real
men manage their own /etc/fstab. ;-)

> Also, just for the record, hal isn't by any stretch of the imagination a 
> "new" daemon.  Its been a USE option for Gentoo's gnome-vfs package since 
> Gnome 2.8, in 2004.

Yes, and at the Ottawa Linux Symposium a talk was given entitled, "How users
space sucks".

http://lwn.net/Articles/192214/

"HAL was responsible for opening almost 2000 files. It will read various XML
files, then happily reopen and reread them multiple times. The bulk of these
files describe hardware which has never been anywhere near the system in
question. Clearly, this is an application which could be a little smarter
about how it does things."

One member of the audience claimed that hald's repeated probing of his
Thinkpad's CDROM drive to see if a CD had been inserted was responsible for
killing it.

That said it doesn't seem to be going away so I really must go through some
tutorial on it. 

Actually I could use one that covers the following:

- sysfs
- udev
- hal
- dbus

and finally

- lvm

I'm sooooo far behind. I heard someone was going to write a daemon to manage
/etc/resolv.conf, and I could only cringe.

Mike
-- 
Michael P. Soulier <msoulier@digitaltorque.ca>
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a
touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."
--Albert Einstein

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:58:18 -0400
schrieb "Michael P. Soulier" <msoulier@digitaltorque.ca>:

> On 13/04/09 Mike Edenfield said:
> 
[...] 
> > Also, just for the record, hal isn't by any stretch of the imagination a 
> > "new" daemon.  Its been a USE option for Gentoo's gnome-vfs package since 
> > Gnome 2.8, in 2004.
> 
> Yes, and at the Ottawa Linux Symposium a talk was given entitled, "How users
> space sucks".
> 
> http://lwn.net/Articles/192214/
> 
> "HAL was responsible for opening almost 2000 files. It will read various XML
> files, then happily reopen and reread them multiple times. The bulk of these
> files describe hardware which has never been anywhere near the system in
> question. Clearly, this is an application which could be a little smarter
> about how it does things."

I remember when I first read that. Needless to say, I was shocked that such a
gruesome thing could ever be possible. I can't wait for it to be replaced
(though I undoubtedly will).

> One member of the audience claimed that hald's repeated probing of his
> Thinkpad's CDROM drive to see if a CD had been inserted was responsible for
> killing it.
> 
> That said it doesn't seem to be going away so I really must go through some
> tutorial on it. 

Actually, exactly that seems to be happening just now. The designated
replacement for HAL is apparently DeviceKit:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/hal/2008-May/011560.html
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/DeviceKit/DeviceKit/commit/?id=a36a7f24413b4663731fa0d92252c74366ceeedb

From the first link:

  "This is a simple system service that a) can enumerate devices; b) emits
  signals when devices are added removed; c) provides a way to merge
  device information / quirks onto devices. And that's it. A device is
  identified by a) the native OS-specific path (on Linux a sysfs path); b)
  an optional UNIX device file; and c) key/value pairs describing the
  device. It's a very simple service, a bit like what HAL is today without
  all the probers/callouts"

  and

  "So what happens with HAL? Applications will continue to use it and we
  will still do bug-fix releases when necessary. But no patches for new
  features will be accepted. I expect most distros to keep shipping it
  (Fedora certainly will) as some apps will take some time to get ported
  over. And the enterprise releases will need to support it for many
  years. So it's not like we're going to ignore it, I just won't accept
  patches for new features. I hope that's understandable."

And from the latter link the updated description:

  "DeviceKit is an abstraction for enumerating devices and listening to
  device events. Any application on the system can access the
  org.freedesktop.DeviceKit service via the system message bus. On
  GNU/Linux, DeviceKit can be considered a simple D-Bus frontend to
  udev(7)."

According to the latter link, apparently even this replacement has been
replaced... where to I'm not really sure. It's now part of 'udev-extras',
whatever that is.

  +NOTE NOTE NOTE: This is probably the last release of DeviceKit. The
  + functionality of DeviceKit is going to be merged into the
  + udev-extras with the only changes being the D-Bus name
  + as well as the prefix for the GObject library and the
  + command line tool.

If anybody has more information, I'd be very interested. All I know is that it
is available in the Gnome overlay (see
http://github.com/uzytkownik/gnome-overlay/tree/3fc78b5b8d961f5b3cff307b883a69e8e9119bc3/sys-apps).

[...]
> 
> Mike

-- 
Marc Joliet
--
Lt. Frank Drebin: "It's true what they say: cops and women don't mix. Like
eating a spoonful of Drāno; sure, it'll clean you out, but it'll leave you
hollow inside."

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[gibboris]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 03:58:18PM -0400, Michael P. Soulier wrote:
> Real men manage their own /etc/fstab. ;-)
+1
(I just noticed that hal creates /media but didn't added it to my fstab,
maybe for the 0.5.12 ? :))

> "HAL was responsible for opening almost 2000 files. It will read various XML
> files, then happily reopen and reread them multiple times. The bulk of these
> files describe hardware which has never been anywhere near the system in
> question. Clearly, this is an application which could be a little smarter
> about how it does things."
The very minimum would be the use inotify("/etc/hal/") (I didn't check
that but I saw :
mmap_cache.c:167: dir '/etc/hal/fdi/...' changed - marking fdi cache as invalid

(when I see all the folks about relatime.... ""bundling"" one (two?)
daemon(s) that poll all around X... :|)

> One member of the audience claimed that hald's repeated probing of his
> Thinkpad's CDROM drive to see if a CD had been inserted was responsible for
> killing it.
From man hal-disable-polling :
"It  is  the  position of the HAL team that polling should be avoided at all
costs as long as it doesn't heavily impact the user experience in a
negative way."
Seems clear : when it does ... let's poll :)

I just stopped dbus and hald, Xorg is still alive !
Maybe it would be possible to make Xorg only request hal-get-property at boot
or something like that ? :)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:30:19 +0200, gibboris@gmail.com wrote:

> > Real men manage their own /etc/fstab. ;-)  
> +1

Hal is about a lot more than mounting memory sticks.

> (I just noticed that hal creates /media but didn't added it to my fstab,
> maybe for the 0.5.12 ? :))

Hal doesn't create the mountpoint in /media, the automounter does.
Removable devices aren't supposed to be added to fstab if they are handled
by an automounter. This is a good thing, do you really want programs
modifying such a critical file whenever they feel like it? Imagine the
possible consequences of a crash or power failure just as your automounter
is updating fstab.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

*/ \*         <- Tribbles having a swordfight

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Re: [gentoo-user] I don't like xorg-server 1.5.3

[Walter Dnes]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 11:36:52AM -0400, Michael P. Soulier wrote
> On 13/04/09 Peter Ruskin said:
> 
> > > Any reason to use -hal?
> > 
> > I don't like hal.  I prefer the traditional linux way of mounting 
> > stuff when I want to.
> 
> On my workstation, so do I, but xorg 1.5 works fine if you follow the
> instructions and rebuild the relevant input drivers.
> 
> msoulier@anton:~$ equery list | grep x11-drivers/
> x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-173.14.15
> x11-drivers/xf86-input-keyboard-1.3.2
> x11-drivers/xf86-input-mouse-1.4.0

<ELVIS>Thank you, thank you, thank you verrry verrry much</ELVIS>

  Reading your message saved me uploading a big bunch of diagnostics
because X had stopped working, i.e. it crashed on launch from startx.  I
now have X working again.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>