[gentoo-user] More about hal

[gentoo-user] More about hal

[Harry Putnam]

When I noticed the thread here about `hal' that started a while back
it caused me enough curiousity that i ran eix -Ic ^hal$ but found I
have no `hal' installed.

I have keep up with updates somewhat better than usual the last few
months but don't remember when hal went away... I do remember having
some trouble with keyboard/mouse, and hal not starting, but that was
quite a while back.

I don't remember making a conscious effort to get rid of hal either.

Evey thing seems to work ok here.  I do notice a problem on bootup
where the keyboard/mouse I have attached to a KVM does not become
usable until AFTER the grub prompt.  Somewhere between there and the
appearance of the login prompt it becomes usable.  But that has gone
on at least a yr if not longer.

So is there something wrong if I have no hal installed.  Is it just
not necessary or has it been replaced?

Re: [gentoo-user] More about hal

[Dale]

Harry Putnam wrote:
> When I noticed the thread here about `hal' that started a while back
> it caused me enough curiousity that i ran eix -Ic ^hal$ but found I
> have no `hal' installed.
>
> I have keep up with updates somewhat better than usual the last few
> months but don't remember when hal went away... I do remember having
> some trouble with keyboard/mouse, and hal not starting, but that was
> quite a while back.
>
> I don't remember making a conscious effort to get rid of hal either.
>
> Evey thing seems to work ok here.  I do notice a problem on bootup
> where the keyboard/mouse I have attached to a KVM does not become
> usable until AFTER the grub prompt.  Somewhere between there and the
> appearance of the login prompt it becomes usable.  But that has gone
> on at least a yr if not longer.
>
> So is there something wrong if I have no hal installed.  Is it just
> not necessary or has it been replaced?
>
>
>
>   

I think it goes to show that a computer can work fine without hal. 
Somebody nudge the KDE folks.  Doesn't KDE require hal?

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] More about hal

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 31 October 2009 22:36:34 Dale wrote:
> Harry Putnam wrote:
> > When I noticed the thread here about `hal' that started a while back
> > it caused me enough curiousity that i ran eix -Ic ^hal$ but found I
> > have no `hal' installed.
> >
> > I have keep up with updates somewhat better than usual the last few
> > months but don't remember when hal went away... I do remember having
> > some trouble with keyboard/mouse, and hal not starting, but that was
> > quite a while back.
> >
> > I don't remember making a conscious effort to get rid of hal either.
> >
> > Evey thing seems to work ok here.  I do notice a problem on bootup
> > where the keyboard/mouse I have attached to a KVM does not become
> > usable until AFTER the grub prompt.  Somewhere between there and the
> > appearance of the login prompt it becomes usable.  But that has gone
> > on at least a yr if not longer.
> >
> > So is there something wrong if I have no hal installed.  Is it just
> > not necessary or has it been replaced?
> 
> I think it goes to show that a computer can work fine without hal.
> Somebody nudge the KDE folks.  Doesn't KDE require hal?

There's no valid technical reason why an app *must* use hal. An app can try 
and do all hardware detection by itself, but it just makes more sense to use 
one common layer for that rather than every app doing essentially the same 
action.

KDE-4 itself does not directly require hal. Solid does though:

$ equery depends hal
 * Searching for hal ...
app-emulation/wine-1.1.32 (hal ? sys-apps/hal)
app-laptop/laptop-mode-tools-1.52 (hal ? sys-apps/hal)
app-misc/hal-cups-utils-0.6.19 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.10)
app-misc/hal-info-20090716 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.10)
kde-base/solid-4.3.2 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.9)
media-gfx/gimp-2.6.7 (hal ? sys-apps/hal)
media-libs/libgphoto2-2.4.7 (hal ? >=sys-apps/hal-0.5)
media-libs/libgpod-0.7.2 (hal ? =sys-apps/hal-0.5*)
media-video/gxine-0.5.903 (hal ? sys-apps/hal)
media-video/vlc-1.0.3_rc (hal ? sys-apps/hal)
net-misc/networkmanager-0.7.1_p20090824 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.10)
sys-apps/pcsc-lite-1.5.5 (hal ? sys-apps/hal)
sys-power/pm-utils-1.2.5 (>=sys-apps/hal-0.5.10)
x11-base/xorg-server-1.7.1 (hal ? sys-apps/hal)
x11-drivers/xf86-input-synaptics-1.2.0 (hal ? sys-apps/hal)
x11-libs/e_dbus-9999 (sys-apps/hal)

There's nothing wrong with the *idea* of hal; it's the implementation of that 
app that makes it an utter piece of shit. It's called "feature-creep".

Even it's author knows this (but apparently many distros do not) which is why 
he deprecated hal and started over with devicekit.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] hal vs. devicekit (was: more about hal)

[Mike Edenfield]

On 10/31/2009 4:59 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Even it's author knows this (but apparently many distros do not) which is why
> he deprecated hal and started over with devicekit.

Speaking of which...

Has the switchover to devicekit officially started and I 
missed it?  And if so, is there some migration guide of some 
sort I can peruse for assistance?

I just upgraded Xorg and Gnome yesterday and my previously 
more-or-less-working with hal system went belly up.  It no 
longer recognizes my synaptics touchpad, and in fact refused 
to start X until I re-merged the kdb/mouse drivers, and 
gnome-power-manager is totally useless.

For the record, I'm all about moving to devicekit from hal 
if that's where the dev(s) are moving, but I'd rather do so 
while continuing to use my laptop :)

--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] hal vs. devicekit (was: more about hal)

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 01 November 2009 00:25:55 Mike Edenfield wrote:
> On 10/31/2009 4:59 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Even it's author knows this (but apparently many distros do not) which is
> > why he deprecated hal and started over with devicekit.
> 
> Speaking of which...
> 
> Has the switchover to devicekit officially started and I
> missed it?  And if so, is there some migration guide of some
> sort I can peruse for assistance?
> 
> I just upgraded Xorg and Gnome yesterday and my previously
> more-or-less-working with hal system went belly up.  It no
> longer recognizes my synaptics touchpad, and in fact refused
> to start X until I re-merged the kdb/mouse drivers, and
> gnome-power-manager is totally useless.
> 
> For the record, I'm all about moving to devicekit from hal
> if that's where the dev(s) are moving, but I'd rather do so
> while continuing to use my laptop :)

devicekit was only recently added to portage, and last time I looked the 
hardware it supported was nowhere near hal yet.

So the answer to your question is unfortunately no

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] hal vs. devicekit

[Dale]

Mike Edenfield wrote:
> On 10/31/2009 4:59 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>
>> Even it's author knows this (but apparently many distros do not)
>> which is why
>> he deprecated hal and started over with devicekit.
>
> Speaking of which...
>
> Has the switchover to devicekit officially started and I missed it? 
> And if so, is there some migration guide of some sort I can peruse for
> assistance?
>
> I just upgraded Xorg and Gnome yesterday and my previously
> more-or-less-working with hal system went belly up.  It no longer
> recognizes my synaptics touchpad, and in fact refused to start X until
> I re-merged the kdb/mouse drivers, and gnome-power-manager is totally
> useless.
>
> For the record, I'm all about moving to devicekit from hal if that's
> where the dev(s) are moving, but I'd rather do so while continuing to
> use my laptop :)
>
> --Mike
>
>

I noticed devicekit going in the tree the other day.  I think I posted
it on this list.

root@smoker / # eix devicekit
* sys-apps/devicekit
     Available versions:  ~003 {doc}
     Homepage:            http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/DeviceKit
     Description:         D-Bus abstraction for enumerating devices and
listening for device events using udev

* sys-apps/devicekit-disks
     Available versions:  ~008 {bash-completion debug doc}
     Homepage:            http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/DeviceKit
     Description:         Daemon providing interfaces to work with
storage devices

* sys-apps/devicekit-power
     Available versions:  ~009 ~011 {debug doc test}
     Homepage:            http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/DeviceKit
     Description:         D-Bus abstraction for enumerating power
devices and querying history and statistics

Found 3 matches.
root@smoker / #

I'm not sure when it FIRST hit the tree but at least it is there.  I
hope the config stuff is easier.  Of course, if it just works, that
would be nice. 

Dale

:-)  :-)