[gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Gentoo!

I've just got a sparkling new installation of Gentoo on my new PC.  It
only took me ~5 hours, mainly because I'd already configured the kernel
in a trial run.  :-)

However, I'm now trying to get X up and running.  "The X Server
Configuration HOWTO", section 3. "Configuring Xorg" says:

    "Hal comes with many premade device rules, also called policies.
    These policy files are available in /usr/....../policy.  Just find a
    few that suit your needs most closely and copy them to /etc/...."

    "For example, to get a basic working keyboard/mouse combination, you
    could copy the following files...
    /usr/.........../10-input-policy.fdi
    /usr/.........../10-x11-input.fdi"

.  Am I the only person that finds this semantic gibberish?  Is there
any explanation somewhere of what a "policy" aka "device rule" is?  What
is the semantic significance of a "device rule"?  What does it mean, to
"rule a device", or what sort of restrictions are being placed on this
device?

Given that one might desire a "basic working keyboard/mouse
combination", what is the chain of reasoning that ends up selecting the
file called "10-input-policy.fdi" from all the other ones?

This file is an inpenetrable stanza of uncommented XML.  Are its verbs
documented somewhere?  What do "<match ...>" and "<append ....>" mean,
for example?

Can this new-style fragmented XML configuration do anything that a good
old-fashioned, human-readable and compact xorg.conf can't?  If so, what?
What am I missing here?

Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly
explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang my
head in shame and apologise for the noise!  ;-)

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Iain Buchanan]

On Mon, 2010-02-08 at 22:20 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> Hi, Gentoo!

OH HAI!

[snip to the crux:]
> Can this new-style fragmented XML configuration do anything that a good
> old-fashioned, human-readable and compact xorg.conf can't?  If so, what?
> What am I missing here?

presumably you're missing the previous conversation on this topic:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/225223/focus=225223

> Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly
> explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang my
> head in shame and apologise for the noise!  ;-)

isn't it just done for you?

$ slocate 10-input-policy.fdi
/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi

iain@orpheus ~ $ equery belongs /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi
 * Searching for /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi ... 
sys-apps/hal-0.5.14-r2 (/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi)

so why are you copying these files by hand?
-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

A university faculty is 500 egotists with a common parking problem.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Paul Hartman]

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 4:20 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly
> explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang my
> head in shame and apologise for the noise!  ;-)

I believe you'll be hearing from Dale in the near future. :)

HAL-in-xorg-in-a-nutshell: If you're using an ordinary desktop system,
you shouldn't need to manually do anything. Just run X as usual and it
should work. You can further customize behavior from inside
Gnome/KDE/whatever using their configuration tools.

Obviously that doesn't always work, at which point you'll then need to
start editing stuff. But I wouldn't bother with it unless you're
unable to get into X for some reason. The first place to look is the X
log file, which contains info about the hardware it auto-detected.
There's also quite a bit of outdated info from when the transition was
taking place, much of it making things sound more complicated than
they really are. (I have not RTFM)

Are you able to get into X or is it failing?

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Tom Hendrikx]

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Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> Hi, Gentoo!
> 
> I've just got a sparkling new installation of Gentoo on my new PC.  It
> only took me ~5 hours, mainly because I'd already configured the kernel
> in a trial run.  :-)
> 
> However, I'm now trying to get X up and running.  "The X Server
> Configuration HOWTO", section 3. "Configuring Xorg" says:
> 
>     "Hal comes with many premade device rules, also called policies.
>     These policy files are available in /usr/....../policy.  Just find a
>     few that suit your needs most closely and copy them to /etc/...."
> 
>     "For example, to get a basic working keyboard/mouse combination, you
>     could copy the following files...
>     /usr/.........../10-input-policy.fdi
>     /usr/.........../10-x11-input.fdi"
> 
>   Am I the only person that finds this semantic gibberish?  Is there
> any explanation somewhere of what a "policy" aka "device rule" is?  What
> is the semantic significance of a "device rule"?  What does it mean, to
> "rule a device", or what sort of restrictions are being placed on this
> device?
> 
> Given that one might desire a "basic working keyboard/mouse
> combination", what is the chain of reasoning that ends up selecting the
> file called "10-input-policy.fdi" from all the other ones?
> 
> This file is an inpenetrable stanza of uncommented XML.  Are its verbs
> documented somewhere?  What do "<match ...>" and "<append ....>" mean,
> for example?
> 
> Can this new-style fragmented XML configuration do anything that a good
> old-fashioned, human-readable and compact xorg.conf can't?  If so, what?
> What am I missing here?
> 
> Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly
> explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang my
> head in shame and apologise for the noise!  ;-)
> 

First, give xorg a chance to figure it out by itself. Most stuff works
here without any HAL tinkering:

$ ls -l /etc/hal/fdi/policy/
total 0
$

Maybe the documentation is a bit too much here, it should probably say
that you should start working with the HAL policies when you notice that
some things are not working right (and when that happens do something
like echo 'keyboard-type missing-feature HAL example' > google)

-- 
Regards,
	Tom


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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> Hi, Gentoo!
>
> I've just got a sparkling new installation of Gentoo on my new PC.  It
> only took me ~5 hours, mainly because I'd already configured the kernel
> in a trial run.  :-)
>
> However, I'm now trying to get X up and running.  "The X Server
> Configuration HOWTO", section 3. "Configuring Xorg" says:
>
>    "Hal comes with many premade device rules, also called policies.
>    These policy files are available in /usr/....../policy.  Just find a
>    few that suit your needs most closely and copy them to /etc/...."
>
>    "For example, to get a basic working keyboard/mouse combination, you
>    could copy the following files...
>    /usr/.........../10-input-policy.fdi
>    /usr/.........../10-x11-input.fdi"
>
> .  Am I the only person that finds this semantic gibberish?  Is there
> any explanation somewhere of what a "policy" aka "device rule" is?  What
> is the semantic significance of a "device rule"?  What does it mean, to
> "rule a device", or what sort of restrictions are being placed on this
> device?
>
> Given that one might desire a "basic working keyboard/mouse
> combination", what is the chain of reasoning that ends up selecting the
> file called "10-input-policy.fdi" from all the other ones?
>
> This file is an inpenetrable stanza of uncommented XML.  Are its verbs
> documented somewhere?  What do "<match ...>" and "<append ....>" mean,
> for example?
>
> Can this new-style fragmented XML configuration do anything that a good
> old-fashioned, human-readable and compact xorg.conf can't?  If so, what?
> What am I missing here?
>
> Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly
> explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang my
> head in shame and apologise for the noise!  ;-)
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
>
>

You are not the only person who finds that decipherable. I don't
understand it and actually I don't even use them unless they are
already where they need to be. hald runs default in rc-update and
things just work. I've done two new AMD64 installations this week and
things seem to be working fine so far.

I'm using evdev in make.config for X mouse and keyboard.

HTH,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Paul Hartman
<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 4:20 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
>> Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly
>> explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang my
>> head in shame and apologise for the noise!  ;-)
>
> I believe you'll be hearing from Dale in the near future. :)
>
> HAL-in-xorg-in-a-nutshell: If you're using an ordinary desktop system,
> you shouldn't need to manually do anything. Just run X as usual and it
> should work.

While I think this is what people believe, I must point out that for
it work automatically the system needs to be supported by whatever
version of drivers support the graphics device in the system.

I just got a DH55HC motherboard with the i5-661 processor which does
some or most of the VGA function. For that device to be discovered and
run automatically I would have had to use stuff that's marked ~amd64
which I generally don't do and in this case didn't because it became a
waterfall of things getting unmasked.

So, if you're supported it will work. If you're not because this is
new hardware then you still need xorg.conf.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 4:20 PM, Alan Mackenzie<acm@muc.de>  wrote:
>    
>> Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly
>> explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang my
>> head in shame and apologise for the noise!  ;-)
>>      
> I believe you'll be hearing from Dale in the near future. :)
>    

ROFLMAO !!!!

Nothing else needs to be said.  I think Alan knows how I feel about hal 
and all the "issues" I have with it.  He also knows how to disable the 
stupid thing too.  ;-)  If he doesn't, he certainly knows who to ask.  LOL

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Walter Dnes]

On Mon, Feb 08, 2010 at 10:20:47PM +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote

> However, I'm now trying to get X up and running.  "The X Server
> Configuration HOWTO", section 3. "Configuring Xorg" says:
> 
>     "Hal comes with many premade device rules, also called policies.
>     These policy files are available in /usr/....../policy.  Just find a
>     few that suit your needs most closely and copy them to /etc/...."
> 
>     "For example, to get a basic working keyboard/mouse combination, you
>     could copy the following files...
>     /usr/.........../10-input-policy.fdi
>     /usr/.........../10-x11-input.fdi"
> 
> .  Am I the only person that finds this semantic gibberish?  Is there
> any explanation somewhere of what a "policy" aka "device rule" is?  What
> is the semantic significance of a "device rule"?  What does it mean, to
> "rule a device", or what sort of restrictions are being placed on this
> device?

  My solution to simplify Gentoo...

waltdnes@d531 ~ $ cat /etc/portage/package.mask 
sys-libs/pam
sys-apps/dbus
sys-apps/hal

  You'll have to do a manual depclean (very carefully) and
revdep-rebuild, but it's worth the effort to purify your Gentoo system.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Mon, Feb 08, 2010 at 10:20:47PM +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote
>
>    
>> However, I'm now trying to get X up and running.  "The X Server
>> Configuration HOWTO", section 3. "Configuring Xorg" says:
>>
>>      "Hal comes with many premade device rules, also called policies.
>>      These policy files are available in /usr/....../policy.  Just find a
>>      few that suit your needs most closely and copy them to /etc/...."
>>
>>      "For example, to get a basic working keyboard/mouse combination, you
>>      could copy the following files...
>>      /usr/.........../10-input-policy.fdi
>>      /usr/.........../10-x11-input.fdi"
>>
>> .  Am I the only person that finds this semantic gibberish?  Is there
>> any explanation somewhere of what a "policy" aka "device rule" is?  What
>> is the semantic significance of a "device rule"?  What does it mean, to
>> "rule a device", or what sort of restrictions are being placed on this
>> device?
>>      
>    My solution to simplify Gentoo...
>
> waltdnes@d531 ~ $ cat /etc/portage/package.mask
> sys-libs/pam
> sys-apps/dbus
> sys-apps/hal
>
>    You'll have to do a manual depclean (very carefully) and
> revdep-rebuild, but it's worth the effort to purify your Gentoo system.
>
>    

Simpler than that, just add -hal to xorg stuff in package.use and then 
run emerge -uvDNa world.  It will rebuild a couple things, maybe even 
just xorg, then everything is back to the old way.  This allows hal to 
be their for other things where it does work but it disables it where it 
doesn't work.

I'm not saying your way won't work but I think mine is easier.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 09 February 2010 00:20:47 Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> Hi, Gentoo!
> 
> I've just got a sparkling new installation of Gentoo on my new PC.  It
> only took me ~5 hours, mainly because I'd already configured the kernel
> in a trial run.  :-)
> 
> However, I'm now trying to get X up and running.  "The X Server
> Configuration HOWTO", section 3. "Configuring Xorg" says:
> 
>     "Hal comes with many premade device rules, also called policies.
>     These policy files are available in /usr/....../policy.  Just find a
>     few that suit your needs most closely and copy them to /etc/...."
> 
>     "For example, to get a basic working keyboard/mouse combination, you
>     could copy the following files...
>     /usr/.........../10-input-policy.fdi
>     /usr/.........../10-x11-input.fdi"
> 
> .  Am I the only person that finds this semantic gibberish?

No, you are not the only one. There's a whole crowd of us here already, you 
can join our club.

We even have a fearless leader and his name is Dale.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 8 Feb 2010 21:17:08 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:

>   My solution to simplify Gentoo...
> 
> waltdnes@d531 ~ $ cat /etc/portage/package.mask 
> sys-libs/pam
> sys-apps/dbus
> sys-apps/hal

That's as much crippling as simplifying. You can do without pam and hal
by setting appropriate USE flags (I run pam-free here by
doing just that) but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to
communicate with one another and removing it can stop your desktop
working as it should.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

WINDOWS: Will Install Needless Data On Whole System

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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Willie Wong]

On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 02:16:15AM -0600, Dale wrote:
> Simpler than that, just add -hal to xorg stuff in package.use and then 
> run emerge -uvDNa world.  It will rebuild a couple things, maybe even 
> just xorg, then everything is back to the old way.  This allows hal to 
> be their for other things where it does work but it disables it where it 
> doesn't work.
> 
Don't you also need to find yourself a working xorg.conf? I seem to be
under the impression that the OP has a recently built new system.

"Xorg -configure" usually gives a working configuration file. Unless
you have nonstandard input devices or if you need to tweak the
settings for graphics and display. 

The good thing is: you only need to set it up once and forget about
it. The bad thing is: you only set it up once and forget about it, so
the next time you install a new system you have to read the man page
again. 

Cheers, 

W
-- 
Willie W. Wong                                     wwong@math.princeton.edu
Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire 
         et vice versa   ~~~  I. Newton

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 02:16:15AM -0600, Dale wrote:
>    
>> Simpler than that, just add -hal to xorg stuff in package.use and then
>> run emerge -uvDNa world.  It will rebuild a couple things, maybe even
>> just xorg, then everything is back to the old way.  This allows hal to
>> be their for other things where it does work but it disables it where it
>> doesn't work.
>>
>>      
> Don't you also need to find yourself a working xorg.conf? I seem to be
> under the impression that the OP has a recently built new system.
>
> "Xorg -configure" usually gives a working configuration file. Unless
> you have nonstandard input devices or if you need to tweak the
> settings for graphics and display.
>
> The good thing is: you only need to set it up once and forget about
> it. The bad thing is: you only set it up once and forget about it, so
> the next time you install a new system you have to read the man page
> again.
>
> Cheers,
>
> W
>    

Most likely he will need to generate a xorg.conf.  There is a example 
one available as well.  I'm hoping the Gentoo install docs still tell 
how to generate a xorg.conf tho.  Surely they didn't remove that.  I 
doubt he was installing Gentoo without reading the docs.

Maybe the OP will post back what is going on shortly.

I also got to start looking at last names instead of just first names.  
We have one more Alan on the list.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Iain,

On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 09:09:14AM +0930, Iain Buchanan wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-02-08 at 22:20 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> [snip to the crux:]
> > Can this new-style fragmented XML configuration do anything that a
> > good old-fashioned, human-readable and compact xorg.conf can't?  If
> > so, what?  What am I missing here?

> presumably you're missing the previous conversation on this topic:
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/225223/focus=225223

Yes, indeed.  I've read up about half of it now.  Have I understood
correctly, that if I carry on with this HAL, I need to use a heavyweight
window manager (such as Gnome) to be able to configure things with?

I "use" Gnome at the moment with an old Debian system, but that "use" is
basically confined to starting Firefox and sometimes xpdf, and
occasionally gimp, and switching between windows.  So I'm looking to use
a less bloated WM now.  I haven't decided which, yet, either xfce or
ratpoison, or maybe something in between.  Sometime I'd like to try
xmonad, because Haskell is such a sweet language.

> > Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly
> > explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang
> > my head in shame and apologise for the noise!  ;-)

> isn't it just done for you?

I don't know.  It (i.e. startx) didn't work at all until I emerged xterm.
Now it starts with 3 working xterms with focus-follows-mouse.  I suppose
that counts as "working".

> $ slocate 10-input-policy.fdi
> /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi

> iain@orpheus ~ $ equery belongs /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi
>  * Searching for /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi ... 
> sys-apps/hal-0.5.14-r2 (/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi)

> so why are you copying these files by hand?

Because the fine manual "The X Server Configuration HOWTO" encouraged me
to do so: "Just find a few that suit your needs most closely and copy
them ....";  "Just copy the ones you need, and edit them once they're
placed in the proper /etc location.".

Actually I hadn't got around to copying them.  I was fuming at the
vagueness of the instructions, and the vagueness of everything else to do
with HAL.  I've a lot of sympathy with David Bowman.  ;-)

So, is there any documentation in Gentoo for configuring HAL?

> -- 
> Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Zeerak Waseem]

On Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:27:32 +0100, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk>  
wrote:

> On Mon, 8 Feb 2010 21:17:08 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
>
>>   My solution to simplify Gentoo...
>>
>> waltdnes@d531 ~ $ cat /etc/portage/package.mask
>> sys-libs/pam
>> sys-apps/dbus
>> sys-apps/hal
>
> That's as much crippling as simplifying. You can do without pam and hal
> by setting appropriate USE flags (I run pam-free here by
> doing just that) but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to
> communicate with one another and removing it can stop your desktop
> working as it should.
>
>

Really? I removed dbus from my system altogether and everything seems to  
be communicating fine. And according to this  
(http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-810848-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-0.html)  
a system should be able to communicate without dbus.

And an easy way to be pam, dbus, and hal free is just setting the right  
USE flags. I'd say it's easier than to make a package.mask file, if you  
haven't created one.

-- 
Zeerak

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:43:12 +0100, Zeerak Waseem wrote:

> > That's as much crippling as simplifying. You can do without pam and
> > hal by setting appropriate USE flags (I run pam-free here by
> > doing just that) but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to
> > communicate with one another and removing it can stop your desktop
> > working as it should.

> Really? I removed dbus from my system altogether and everything seems
> to be communicating fine. And according to this  
> (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-810848-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-0.html)  
> a system should be able to communicate without dbus.

I've not read the whole thread, but this quote jumped out.

"DBUS is just the chosen successor to DCOP and CORBA; all platforms have
 inter-process messaging (e.g, Distributed Objects in OSX/*STEP)."

It is a messaging layer and nothing to do with HAL, although HAL may use
it to communicate, for example to let the desktop know that a USB device
has been connected or disconnected.

While HAL is an ugly mess that should never be exposed to users, D-Bus
just gets on with its job, maybe because it is not exposed to users.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
    Benjamin Franklin

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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Mike Edenfield]

On 2/8/2010 5:20 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> .  Am I the only person that finds this semantic gibberish?  Is there
> any explanation somewhere of what a "policy" aka "device rule" is?  What
> is the semantic significance of a "device rule"?  What does it mean, to
> "rule a device", or what sort of restrictions are being placed on this
> device?

> Given that one might desire a "basic working keyboard/mouse
> combination", what is the chain of reasoning that ends up selecting the
> file called "10-input-policy.fdi" from all the other ones?

> This file is an inpenetrable stanza of uncommented XML.  Are its verbs
> documented somewhere?  What do "<match ...>" and"<append ....>" mean,
> for example?

The way HAL works, in a nutshell, is to scan your system for 
every known piece of hardware it can find, and stores the 
information in a tree-like database of key/value pairs. 
Software can then query this database for information about 
whatever hardware you have.  The information includes things 
like the bus location of the hardware, the manufacturer 
information, state information, and a lists of known 
capabilities like "keyboard", "mouse", "disk", etc.

Device Rules are simply ways for the user to change values 
in the database after a device has been detected.  The XML 
files work in two steps:

1. <match> an existing node in the database,
2. <append> or <merge new values into those nodes.

For example, the hplip printer/scanner drivers include a set 
of HAL rules that match HP devices by their PCI device 
information, then append "scanner" to their list of 
capabilities.  Other software can then scan the HAL database 
for "all scanners" and find them.  The synaptics touchpad 
driver (if you build it +hal) includes a set of HAL rules 
that overrides the standard 'mouse' rules to make your 
touchpad more useful.

That bit about you having to do anything to make a "basic 
working" setup function, though, is wrong.  On Gentoo, at 
least, everything you need for a working keyboard and mouse 
in X should be installed properly for you by default.  You'd 
only need to mess with the rules if something didn't work. 
But, see below.

> Can this new-style fragmented XML configuration do anything that a good
> old-fashioned, human-readable and compact xorg.conf can't?  If so, what?
> What am I missing here?

HAL manages a *lot* more than just your X configuration. 
It's intended to be a complete hardware management layer, 
one that was able to keep pace with new hardware more 
quickly than the kernel could.  If you run the HAL database 
dump utility "lshal" you'll see more information about your 
hardware than you could ever possible care to know.

> Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly
> explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang my
> head in shame and apologise for the noise!  ;-)

Oddly enough, the most complete explanation of HAL I've ever 
found was on the Gentoo wiki and I think the page may be 
lost.  It was never really documented that well, though 
there are a number of places you can find specific ways to 
do specific things (like using a touchpad) with HAL.

The key point here, though, is that HAL is going away.  Not 
because it was hard to configure, though -- because the code 
is an "unmaintainable mess" and because other software, like 
udev, duplicated much of its purpose.

At this point, if it's not working for you out of the box, 
turn it back off and revert to the old style configuration file.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[roundyz]

Alan Mackenzie wrote:

>> Hi, Iain,
>> 
>> On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 09:09:14AM +0930, Iain Buchanan wrote:
>> > On Mon, 2010-02-08 at 22:20 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>> > [snip to the crux:]
>> > > Can this new-style fragmented XML configuration do anything that a
>> > > good old-fashioned, human-readable and compact xorg.conf can't?  If
>> > > so, what?  What am I missing here?
>> 
>> > presumably you're missing the previous conversation on this topic:
>> > http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/225223/focus=225223
>> 
>> Yes, indeed.  I've read up about half of it now.  Have I understood
>> correctly, that if I carry on with this HAL, I need to use a heavyweight
>> window manager (such as Gnome) to be able to configure things with?
>> 
>> I "use" Gnome at the moment with an old Debian system, but that "use" is
>> basically confined to starting Firefox and sometimes xpdf, and
>> occasionally gimp, and switching between windows.  So I'm looking to use
>> a less bloated WM now.  I haven't decided which, yet, either xfce or
>> ratpoison, or maybe something in between.  Sometime I'd like to try
>> xmonad, because Haskell is such a sweet language.
>> 
>> > > Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly
>> > > explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang
>> > > my head in shame and apologise for the noise!  ;-)
>> 
>> > isn't it just done for you?
>> 
>> I don't know.  It (i.e. startx) didn't work at all until I emerged xterm.
>> Now it starts with 3 working xterms with focus-follows-mouse.  I suppose
>> that counts as "working".
>> 

This is the failsafe. I thinks is twm.

>> > $ slocate 10-input-policy.fdi
>> > /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi
>> 
>> > iain@orpheus ~ $ equery belongs /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi
>> >  * Searching for /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi ... 
>> > sys-apps/hal-0.5.14-r2 (/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-input-policy.fdi)
>> 
>> > so why are you copying these files by hand?
>> 
>> Because the fine manual "The X Server Configuration HOWTO" encouraged me
>> to do so: "Just find a few that suit your needs most closely and copy
>> them ....";  "Just copy the ones you need, and edit them once they're
>> placed in the proper /etc location.".
>> 
>> Actually I hadn't got around to copying them.  I was fuming at the
>> vagueness of the instructions, and the vagueness of everything else to do
>> with HAL.  I've a lot of sympathy with David Bowman.  ;-)
>> 
>> So, is there any documentation in Gentoo for configuring HAL?
>> 
>> > -- 
>> > Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>
>> 
>> -- 
>> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
>> 
>> 

You don't need a heavy wm to use hal with xorg. I use blackbox and my
hal works a treat, the only thing I have in my xorg is my video settings
because my monitor is a twat and has forgotten it's own mode lines (or
it won't tell my gcard).

Blackbox is super and lightweight.

The fdi files should be copied over to /etc and reconfigured, the ones
in /usr should remain.

If you have every configured xorg by hand before, the xml syntax in the
fdi files are quite easy to get to grips with, like key=lvalue and type
is the type of data the lvalue will point to, the part inbetween the
tags is the value.

 <merge key="input.xkb.layout" type="string">gb</merge>

So this says insert into my xorg keyboards section the lvalue layout and
its value is "GB", easy, huh?
-- 
Regards,
Roundyz

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 5:33 AM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:43:12 +0100, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
>
>> > That's as much crippling as simplifying. You can do without pam and
>> > hal by setting appropriate USE flags (I run pam-free here by
>> > doing just that) but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to
>> > communicate with one another and removing it can stop your desktop
>> > working as it should.
>
>> Really? I removed dbus from my system altogether and everything seems
>> to be communicating fine. And according to this
>> (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-810848-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-0.html)
>> a system should be able to communicate without dbus.
>
> I've not read the whole thread, but this quote jumped out.
>
> "DBUS is just the chosen successor to DCOP and CORBA; all platforms have
>  inter-process messaging (e.g, Distributed Objects in OSX/*STEP)."
>
> It is a messaging layer and nothing to do with HAL, although HAL may use
> it to communicate, for example to let the desktop know that a USB device
> has been connected or disconnected.
>
> While HAL is an ugly mess that should never be exposed to users, D-Bus
> just gets on with its job, maybe because it is not exposed to users.
>
>
> --
> Neil Bothwick

The forums seems to be down at the moment so I'll try to read the
thread later. The only thing I wanted to say what that for me it's
been somewhat backward. hald doesn't work for my video cards because
my hardware isn't well supported. However I still have it turned on. I
cannot suggest why it's on, but it is. I presume it helps with
mounting external drives and things but I cannot or have not proved
it.

On the other hand there's a _long_ history in the pro-audio area of
seeing problems with dbus messing up the operation of Jack audio and
many of us including me leave dbus turned off.

Go figure!

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Mike Edenfield]

On 2/9/2010 3:16 AM, Dale wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Feb 2010 21:17:08 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
>> My solution to simplify Gentoo...
>>
>> waltdnes@d531 ~ $ cat /etc/portage/package.mask
>> sys-libs/pam
>> sys-apps/dbus
>> sys-apps/hal
>>
>> You'll have to do a manual depclean (very carefully) and
>> revdep-rebuild, but it's worth the effort to purify your Gentoo system.
>>

> Simpler than that, just add -hal to xorg stuff in package.use and then
> run emerge -uvDNa world.

> I'm not saying your way won't work but I think mine is easier.

His way is also *way* more Luddite than yours.  Note the 
'pam' and 'dbus', two things basically standard (and very 
stable) on modern Linux desktop systems.

--K

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On 2/9/2010 3:16 AM, Dale wrote:
>> On Mon, 8 Feb 2010 21:17:08 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
>>> My solution to simplify Gentoo...
>>>
>>> waltdnes@d531 ~ $ cat /etc/portage/package.mask
>>> sys-libs/pam
>>> sys-apps/dbus
>>> sys-apps/hal
>>>
>>> You'll have to do a manual depclean (very carefully) and
>>> revdep-rebuild, but it's worth the effort to purify your Gentoo system.
>>>
>
>> Simpler than that, just add -hal to xorg stuff in package.use and then
>> run emerge -uvDNa world.
>
>> I'm not saying your way won't work but I think mine is easier.
>
> His way is also *way* more Luddite than yours.  Note the 'pam' and 
> 'dbus', two things basically standard (and very stable) on modern 
> Linux desktop systems.
>
> --K
>

I don't agree with the term Luddite here.  It's not being against new 
things and new ways of doing things.  He just doesn't need those things 
for his hardware to work properly.  Me, I don't need hal for my mouse 
and keyboard to work.  As a matter of fact, mine doesn't work WITH hal.  
I have to remove hal to get mine to work.

So, hal may be progress to you but it is a step backward for me.  It's 
the opposite of progress.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday 09 February 2010 22:58:10 Dale wrote:

> So, hal may be progress to you but it is a step backward for me. 
> It's the opposite of progress.

Careful now, Dale. Watch that blood pressure...

-- 
Rgds
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Zeerak Waseem]

On Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:58:10 +0100, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:

> chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
>> On 2/9/2010 3:16 AM, Dale wrote:
>>> On Mon, 8 Feb 2010 21:17:08 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
>>>> My solution to simplify Gentoo...
>>>>
>>>> waltdnes@d531 ~ $ cat /etc/portage/package.mask
>>>> sys-libs/pam
>>>> sys-apps/dbus
>>>> sys-apps/hal
>>>>
>>>> You'll have to do a manual depclean (very carefully) and
>>>> revdep-rebuild, but it's worth the effort to purify your Gentoo  
>>>> system.
>>>>
>>
>>> Simpler than that, just add -hal to xorg stuff in package.use and then
>>> run emerge -uvDNa world.
>>
>>> I'm not saying your way won't work but I think mine is easier.
>>
>> His way is also *way* more Luddite than yours.  Note the 'pam' and  
>> 'dbus', two things basically standard (and very stable) on modern Linux  
>> desktop systems.
>>
>> --K
>>
>
> I don't agree with the term Luddite here.  It's not being against new  
> things and new ways of doing things.  He just doesn't need those things  
> for his hardware to work properly.  Me, I don't need hal for my mouse  
> and keyboard to work.  As a matter of fact, mine doesn't work WITH hal.   
> I have to remove hal to get mine to work.
>
> So, hal may be progress to you but it is a step backward for me.  It's  
> the opposite of progress.
>
> Dale
>
> :-)  :-)
>

I think, that hal was a lot harder for a lot of us, than the good old  
xorg.conf. This may because we (linux user in general) are used to  
xorg.conf. For my personal experience, I hadn't been using linux for about  
4 years, so I'd completely forgotten the xorg syntax, but that was still a  
more simple process to relearn the xorg.conf syntax, than understanding  
the hal configuration files.

A project such as hal necessarily has contact with the user with an  
"unusual" (read: at least a non-us keyboard) setup. Therefore the syntax  
in which it is configured has to be "easily" (read: a quick google  
search/documentation search away) accessed by the users to whom it may be  
necessary. And I believe that this is the point where hal truly fails,  
other than cases like Dale's.
The xorg.conf is simply a more simple, and easier configuration file than  
the various hal policies.

-- 
Zeerak

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Tuesday 09 February 2010 22:58:10 Dale wrote:
>
>    
>> So, hal may be progress to you but it is a step backward for me.
>> It's the opposite of progress.
>>      
> Careful now, Dale. Watch that blood pressure...
>
>    

Oh I'm fine.  I already learned not to use it.  I feel sorry for the 
rest of the people that have not.  lol

Now to go watch NCIS.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Wednesday 10 February 2010 01:02:50 Dale wrote:

> Oh I'm fine.

Thank Goodness!

> Now to go watch NCIS.

I won't ask what that is; I think I'd rather not know.

-- 
Rgds
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:58:10 +0100, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
>>> On 2/9/2010 3:16 AM, Dale wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 8 Feb 2010 21:17:08 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
>>>>> My solution to simplify Gentoo...
>>>>>
>>>>> waltdnes@d531 ~ $ cat /etc/portage/package.mask
>>>>> sys-libs/pam
>>>>> sys-apps/dbus
>>>>> sys-apps/hal
>>>>>
>>>>> You'll have to do a manual depclean (very carefully) and
>>>>> revdep-rebuild, but it's worth the effort to purify your Gentoo 
>>>>> system.
>>>>>
>>>
>>>> Simpler than that, just add -hal to xorg stuff in package.use and then
>>>> run emerge -uvDNa world.
>>>
>>>> I'm not saying your way won't work but I think mine is easier.
>>>
>>> His way is also *way* more Luddite than yours.  Note the 'pam' and 
>>> 'dbus', two things basically standard (and very stable) on modern 
>>> Linux desktop systems.
>>>
>>> --K
>>>
>>
>> I don't agree with the term Luddite here.  It's not being against new 
>> things and new ways of doing things.  He just doesn't need those 
>> things for his hardware to work properly.  Me, I don't need hal for 
>> my mouse and keyboard to work.  As a matter of fact, mine doesn't 
>> work WITH hal.  I have to remove hal to get mine to work.
>>
>> So, hal may be progress to you but it is a step backward for me.  
>> It's the opposite of progress.
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-)
>>
>
> I think, that hal was a lot harder for a lot of us, than the good old 
> xorg.conf. This may because we (linux user in general) are used to 
> xorg.conf. For my personal experience, I hadn't been using linux for 
> about 4 years, so I'd completely forgotten the xorg syntax, but that 
> was still a more simple process to relearn the xorg.conf syntax, than 
> understanding the hal configuration files.
>
> A project such as hal necessarily has contact with the user with an 
> "unusual" (read: at least a non-us keyboard) setup. Therefore the 
> syntax in which it is configured has to be "easily" (read: a quick 
> google search/documentation search away) accessed by the users to whom 
> it may be necessary. And I believe that this is the point where hal 
> truly fails, other than cases like Dale's.
> The xorg.conf is simply a more simple, and easier configuration file 
> than the various hal policies.
>

Well, actually, if hal would have worked I wouldn't have cared if it 
uses xorg.conf at all.  That was the point of using hal.  Thing is, I 
followed the howto and it didn't work.  The fact that the config files 
are in xml only became a problem after hal locked me out of my GUI and 
required a hard shutdown.

So, hal failed on my system not just because of the config files being 
in xml but because it just didn't work at all.  Bad things is, this 
system is a 5 year old rig.  Heaven forbid I had something new that had 
"iffy" support.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] OT: How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Zeerak Waseem]

On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:18:54 +0100, Peter Humphrey  
<peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:

> On Wednesday 10 February 2010 01:02:50 Dale wrote:
>
>> Oh I'm fine.
>
> Thank Goodness!
>
>> Now to go watch NCIS.
>
> I won't ask what that is; I think I'd rather not know.
>


NCIS = Naval Criminal Investigative Service. It's good ;)


I am worried about the blood pressure though ;)

-- 
Zeerak

Re: [gentoo-user] OT: How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:18:54 +0100, Peter Humphrey 
> <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday 10 February 2010 01:02:50 Dale wrote:
>>
>>> Oh I'm fine.
>>
>> Thank Goodness!
>>
>>> Now to go watch NCIS.
>>
>> I won't ask what that is; I think I'd rather not know.
>>
>
>
> NCIS = Naval Criminal Investigative Service. It's good ;)
>
>
> I am worried about the blood pressure though ;)
>

With all the things I have to deal with, hal is not even on the top 25 
or so.  Heck, my puter doesn't even make that.

Dale

:-)  :-)

[gentoo-user] Re: OT: How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[walt]

On 02/09/2010 06:30 PM, Dale wrote:

> With all the things I have to deal with, hal is not even on the top 25 or so.
 > Heck, my puter doesn't even make that.

You offer us a glimmer of hope, Dale.  How did you push your computer problems
below number 25?  If it involves drugs, please publish a list of them!

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday 10 February 2010 03:29:50 Dale wrote:
> Well, actually, if hal would have worked I wouldn't have cared if it 
> uses xorg.conf at all.  That was the point of using hal.  Thing is, I 
> followed the howto and it didn't work.  The fact that the config files 
> are in xml only became a problem after hal locked me out of my GUI and 
> required a hard shutdown.
> 

hal is a classic "Second System Effect" case

But I thought we thrashed this to death a while ago and all agreed to never 
speak of this abomination again, while we await the Third System Effect aka 
DeviceKit?

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Wednesday 10 February 2010 03:29:50 Dale wrote:
>    
>> Well, actually, if hal would have worked I wouldn't have cared if it
>> uses xorg.conf at all.  That was the point of using hal.  Thing is, I
>> followed the howto and it didn't work.  The fact that the config files
>> are in xml only became a problem after hal locked me out of my GUI and
>> required a hard shutdown.
>>
>>      
> hal is a classic "Second System Effect" case
>
> But I thought we thrashed this to death a while ago and all agreed to never
> speak of this abomination again, while we await the Third System Effect aka
> DeviceKit?
>
>    

 From what I read it appears to be the same guy doing both.  Maybe, just 
maybe, some lessons were learned and it will be a lot better.  I'm 
hoping it will be anyway.  I don't care what the config files are if it 
works.  If my hardware doesn't work, then I need to be able to edit that 
without a rocket science degree.  I like watching things shoot into 
space but I don't want to design or build the darn thing.   lol

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 645 bytes --]

On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:24:36 -0600, Dale wrote:

> > hal is a classic "Second System Effect" case

> > But I thought we thrashed this to death a while ago and all agreed to
> > never speak of this abomination again, while we await the Third
> > System Effect aka DeviceKit?

>  From what I read it appears to be the same guy doing both.  Maybe,
> just maybe, some lessons were learned and it will be a lot better.

Isn't that the point of redoing it? It's when someone else comes along
with  brand new way of doing things that we get a whole load of brand new
problems?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

If you cannot fix it, feature it.

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday 10 February 2010 11:38:52 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:24:36 -0600, Dale wrote:
> > > hal is a classic "Second System Effect" case
> > > 
> > > But I thought we thrashed this to death a while ago and all agreed to
> > > never speak of this abomination again, while we await the Third
> > > System Effect aka DeviceKit?
> >  
> >  From what I read it appears to be the same guy doing both.  Maybe,
> > 
> > just maybe, some lessons were learned and it will be a lot better.
> 
> Isn't that the point of redoing it? It's when someone else comes along
> with  brand new way of doing things that we get a whole load of brand new
> problems?

It really is the same guy. His blog said something to the effect of:

"hal is a load of crap. I knew it long ago, the other devs knew it slightly 
less longer ago and the users now know it too. We were trying to do too much 
and shoehorn too many things into the same boxes that belonged in different 
boxes. I'm fed up trying to maintain this steaming mess, will not be adding 
new features, and wash my hands of it. I'll be doing a rewrite called 
DeviceKit."

So kudos to the man for recognizing the real problem, admitting it, and moving 
onto a real solution. Nothing wrong with making a mistake and fixing it - 
that's how we learn.

Personally, my mistakes teach me MUCH more than my successes - I then know 
what not to do :-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:24:36 -0600, Dale wrote:
>
>    
>>> hal is a classic "Second System Effect" case
>>>        
>    
>>> But I thought we thrashed this to death a while ago and all agreed to
>>> never speak of this abomination again, while we await the Third
>>> System Effect aka DeviceKit?
>>>        
>    
>>    From what I read it appears to be the same guy doing both.  Maybe,
>> just maybe, some lessons were learned and it will be a lot better.
>>      
> Isn't that the point of redoing it? It's when someone else comes along
> with  brand new way of doing things that we get a whole load of brand new
> problems?
>
>    

That was my point.  I'm hoping he sees the "weaknesses" of hal and 
doesn't put those in devicekit.  I'm hopeful it will be better not just 
the same old thing with a new name.

Speaking of improvements, I'll be glad when Seamonkey sorts out that top 
line up there.  It appears that Seamonkey 2 still has a bug up its 
butt.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Wednesday 10 February 2010 11:38:52 Neil Bothwick wrote:
>    
>> On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:24:36 -0600, Dale wrote:
>>      
>>>> hal is a classic "Second System Effect" case
>>>>
>>>> But I thought we thrashed this to death a while ago and all agreed to
>>>> never speak of this abomination again, while we await the Third
>>>> System Effect aka DeviceKit?
>>>>          
>>>
>>>    From what I read it appears to be the same guy doing both.  Maybe,
>>>
>>> just maybe, some lessons were learned and it will be a lot better.
>>>        
>> Isn't that the point of redoing it? It's when someone else comes along
>> with  brand new way of doing things that we get a whole load of brand new
>> problems?
>>      
> It really is the same guy. His blog said something to the effect of:
>
> "hal is a load of crap. I knew it long ago, the other devs knew it slightly
> less longer ago and the users now know it too. We were trying to do too much
> and shoehorn too many things into the same boxes that belonged in different
> boxes. I'm fed up trying to maintain this steaming mess, will not be adding
> new features, and wash my hands of it. I'll be doing a rewrite called
> DeviceKit."
>
> So kudos to the man for recognizing the real problem, admitting it, and moving
> onto a real solution. Nothing wrong with making a mistake and fixing it -
> that's how we learn.
>
> Personally, my mistakes teach me MUCH more than my successes - I then know
> what not to do :-)
>
>    

That's what I am thinking.  At least he knows hardware, how to write a 
program and sees the big picture of how it turned out.  That's why I 
said I hope this new thing will be better.  He sees where it got lost 
and wants to make it better.  Kudos for knowing it is better to start 
from freaking scratch too.  Think Bill Gates could ever do that?   ROFL

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Walter Dnes]

On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 10:27:32AM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote

> but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to communicate
> with one another and removing it can stop your desktop working as
> it should.

  Then how did things manage to work on my systems for the past 9 years,
pray tell?

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday 10 February 2010 14:57:57 Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 10:27:32AM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote
> 
> > but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to communicate
> > with one another and removing it can stop your desktop working as
> > it should.
> 
>   Then how did things manage to work on my systems for the past 9 years,
> pray tell?

Because pre-dbus your desktop apps used a mish-mash of all sorts of $STUFF 
that did the same thing in a spaghetti like manner. KDE had dcop but couldn't 
talk directly to gnome apps and vice-versa.

post-dbus we have a coherent message bus system that is DE-agnostic and 
supported by freedesktop. Apps get migrated to use dbus instead of spaghetti 
and things work better.

With KDE-3.5 you couldn't just dispense with dcop and expect stuff to work. 
Same with dbus currently.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:57:57 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:

> > but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to communicate
> > with one another and removing it can stop your desktop working as
> > it should.  
> 
>   Then how did things manage to work on my systems for the past 9 years,
> pray tell?

Because nine years ago, Linux desktop  software didn't use interprocess
communication. Of course things will still work, but not necessarily
everything. For example, Network Manager uses D-Bus to tell programs when
your Internet connection is available and not, so your mail client goes
into offline mode rather than pointlessly trying to access your mailbox.
KDE4 uses it quite extensively, ust as KDE3 used DCOP.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Vuja De: the feeling that you've never been here before.

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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:57:57 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
>
>    
>>> but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to communicate
>>> with one another and removing it can stop your desktop working as
>>> it should.
>>>        
>>    Then how did things manage to work on my systems for the past 9 years,
>> pray tell?
>>      
> Because nine years ago, Linux desktop  software didn't use interprocess
> communication. Of course things will still work, but not necessarily
> everything. For example, Network Manager uses D-Bus to tell programs when
> your Internet connection is available and not, so your mail client goes
> into offline mode rather than pointlessly trying to access your mailbox.
> KDE4 uses it quite extensively, ust as KDE3 used DCOP.
>
>    

So that's why when I am downloading something it doesn't check my 
emails.  I was always curious about that.

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Mike Edenfield]

On 2/10/2010 2:12 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Wednesday 10 February 2010 03:29:50 Dale wrote:
>> Well, actually, if hal would have worked I wouldn't have cared if it
>> uses xorg.conf at all.  That was the point of using hal.  Thing is, I
>> followed the howto and it didn't work.  The fact that the config files
>> are in xml only became a problem after hal locked me out of my GUI and
>> required a hard shutdown.
>>
>
> hal is a classic "Second System Effect" case
>
> But I thought we thrashed this to death a while ago and all agreed to never
> speak of this abomination again, while we await the Third System Effect aka
> DeviceKit?
>

Last I heard DeviceKit was "deprecated before it even happened" and 
they're just going to move everything into udev.

--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On 2/10/2010 2:12 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>> On Wednesday 10 February 2010 03:29:50 Dale wrote:
>>> Well, actually, if hal would have worked I wouldn't have cared if it
>>> uses xorg.conf at all.  That was the point of using hal.  Thing is, I
>>> followed the howto and it didn't work.  The fact that the config files
>>> are in xml only became a problem after hal locked me out of my GUI and
>>> required a hard shutdown.
>>>
>>
>> hal is a classic "Second System Effect" case
>>
>> But I thought we thrashed this to death a while ago and all agreed to 
>> never
>> speak of this abomination again, while we await the Third System 
>> Effect aka
>> DeviceKit?
>>
>
> Last I heard DeviceKit was "deprecated before it even happened" and 
> they're just going to move everything into udev.
>
> --Mike
>
>

Well, udev does seem to work at least.  lol  Maybe the devicekit guy 
could just slide over and help the udev people?

Heck, as long as it works, I'm fine with it.  I just don't like having 
to unexpectedly do a hard reboot.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[J. Roeleveld]

On Tuesday 09 February 2010 23:58:10 Dale wrote:
> So, hal may be progress to you but it is a step backward for me.  It's
> the opposite of progress.

You mean HAL = Congress?

Sorry, couldn't resist ;)

And now, back on topic :)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Tuesday 09 February 2010 23:58:10 Dale wrote:
>    
>> So, hal may be progress to you but it is a step backward for me.  It's
>> the opposite of progress.
>>      
> You mean HAL = Congress?
>
> Sorry, couldn't resist ;)
>
> And now, back on topic :)
>
>    

Well anytime the Congress does anything, it isn't progress.  It never 
has been.   That was hard to resist tho.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[pk]

Neil Bothwick wrote:

> Because nine years ago, Linux desktop  software didn't use interprocess
> communication. Of course things will still work, but not necessarily

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-process_communication
http://tldp.org/LDP/tlk/ipc/ipc.html

D-Bus is just a YAIPC (Yet-Another-Inter-Process-Communication)...

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Iain Buchanan]

On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 08:29 -0600, Dale wrote:
> chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> > On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:57:57 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:

> >  For example, Network Manager uses D-Bus to tell programs when
> > your Internet connection is available and not, so your mail client goes
> > into offline mode rather than pointlessly trying to access your mailbox.
> > KDE4 uses it quite extensively, ust as KDE3 used DCOP.
> 
> So that's why when I am downloading something it doesn't check my 
> emails.  I was always curious about that.

that shouldn't be the case - what email client are you using?  Evolution
supports this (with the networkmanager USE flag*) but it goes offline
when all your interfaces are down, not just "in use" like heavy
downloading.

* actually the USE flag (networkmanager instead of dbus) and the
comments on it suggest that it talks directly to NetworkManager and not
via dbus, but I don't actually know.

$ equery u evolution
...
 - + networkmanager : Allows Evolution to automagically toggle online/offline
                      mode by talking to net-misc/networkmanager and getting
                      the current network state


-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

She always believed in the old adage -- leave them while you're looking good.
		-- Anita Loos, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 08:29 -0600, Dale wrote:
>    
>> chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
>>      
>>> On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:57:57 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
>>>        
>    
>>>   For example, Network Manager uses D-Bus to tell programs when
>>> your Internet connection is available and not, so your mail client goes
>>> into offline mode rather than pointlessly trying to access your mailbox.
>>> KDE4 uses it quite extensively, ust as KDE3 used DCOP.
>>>        
>> So that's why when I am downloading something it doesn't check my
>> emails.  I was always curious about that.
>>      
> that shouldn't be the case - what email client are you using?  Evolution
> supports this (with the networkmanager USE flag*) but it goes offline
> when all your interfaces are down, not just "in use" like heavy
> downloading.
>
> * actually the USE flag (networkmanager instead of dbus) and the
> comments on it suggest that it talks directly to NetworkManager and not
> via dbus, but I don't actually know.
>
> $ equery u evolution
> ...
>   - + networkmanager : Allows Evolution to automagically toggle online/offline
>                        mode by talking to net-misc/networkmanager and getting
>                        the current network state
>
>    

I use Seamonkey 2 right now.  You may be able to tell that by that pesky 
line at the top.  It appears Seamonkey has a roach or two rambling 
around in there.  Anyway, maybe it is just that the download is making 
it slow enough that it just cancels the request when it is busy.  I 
dunno.  I have noticed tho that I don't get emails for a while when I am 
downloading something large but if I hit the 'get messages' button, then 
I get a lot of messages that appear to be time stamped from a good while 
ago.

Maybe this is just a coincidence or something.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Iain Buchanan]

On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 22:54 -0600, Dale wrote:
> chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:

what _is_ that?! (Don't tell me, if we ignore it maybe it will go away)

> > On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 08:29 -0600, Dale wrote:

> I use Seamonkey 2 right now.  You may be able to tell that by that pesky 
> line at the top.  It appears Seamonkey has a roach or two rambling 
> around in there.  Anyway, maybe it is just that the download is making 
> it slow enough that it just cancels the request when it is busy.  I 
> dunno.  I have noticed tho that I don't get emails for a while when I am 
> downloading something large but if I hit the 'get messages' button, then 
> I get a lot of messages that appear to be time stamped from a good while 
> ago.
> 
> Maybe this is just a coincidence or something.

maybe.  It could be that Seamonkey is detecting your network usage
somehow, like azureus can, but I would think that emails are "important"
and I doubt would be subject to this idea.

Maybe the timestamps are when the message was "sent" but it took some
time to get to you? (happens sometimes).  Could also be the senders
clock is wrong...

Otherwise I'd get a can of bug-spray, spray your cat5 and phone cables
and see what falls out ;)

-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than
a gallon of vinegar.
		-- B. Franklin

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 02:18:43PM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote
> On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:57:57 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
> 
> > > but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to communicate
> > > with one another and removing it can stop your desktop working as
> > > it should.  
> > 
> >   Then how did things manage to work on my systems for the past 9 years,
> > pray tell?
> 
> Because nine years ago, Linux desktop  software didn't use interprocess
> communication. Of course things will still work, but not necessarily
> everything. For example, Network Manager uses D-Bus to tell programs when
> your Internet connection is available and not, so your mail client goes
> into offline mode rather than pointlessly trying to access your mailbox.
> KDE4 uses it quite extensively, ust as KDE3 used DCOP.

  There is too much solution-in-search-of-a-problem here.  XMMS followed
the original Unix philosophy... it did one thing did it right, namely
playing audio.  Unfortunately, XMMS was hard-coded to use a now obsolete
GTK library.

  The "successor" to XMMS is Audacious.  It seems to subscribe to the
Microsoft philosophy, and tries to do everything under the sun, and
pretends it's a server, which requires dbus.  Is it *REALLY* necessary?
I used XMMS to play mp3's and Live365.com.  I ended up switching to
mpg123 for both functions when XMMS was dropped, and then to the Flash
player for Live365.  I emerged Audacious, but unmerged it when I saw the
post-install warning that said not to submit any Audacious bug reports
if I don't have dbus installed.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 11 February 2010 09:31:21 Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 02:18:43PM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote
> 
> > On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:57:57 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
> > > > but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to communicate
> > > > with one another and removing it can stop your desktop working as
> > > > it should.
> > > > 
> > >   Then how did things manage to work on my systems for the past 9
> > >   years,
> > > 
> > > pray tell?
> > 
> > Because nine years ago, Linux desktop  software didn't use interprocess
> > communication. Of course things will still work, but not necessarily
> > everything. For example, Network Manager uses D-Bus to tell programs when
> > your Internet connection is available and not, so your mail client goes
> > into offline mode rather than pointlessly trying to access your mailbox.
> > KDE4 uses it quite extensively, ust as KDE3 used DCOP.
> 
>   There is too much solution-in-search-of-a-problem here.  XMMS followed
> the original Unix philosophy... it did one thing did it right, namely
> playing audio.  Unfortunately, XMMS was hard-coded to use a now obsolete
> GTK library.

Unfortunately, that's analogous to a business employing 5 people, all of whom 
do their own thing all the time with no inter-person communication and no co-
ordination. Perhaps they might scribble a note on a white board once a day, 
but that's about it.

>   The "successor" to XMMS is Audacious.  It seems to subscribe to the
> Microsoft philosophy, and tries to do everything under the sun, and
> pretends it's a server, which requires dbus.  Is it *REALLY* necessary?
> I used XMMS to play mp3's and Live365.com.  I ended up switching to
> mpg123 for both functions when XMMS was dropped, and then to the Flash
> player for Live365.  I emerged Audacious, but unmerged it when I saw the
> post-install warning that said not to submit any Audacious bug reports
> if I don't have dbus installed.

Modern desktops are integrated, because that's what users want. Any two apps 
should be able to inter-communicate wherever that communication makes sense.

Example: You have any old arbitrary email client. A mail contains a URL. Click 
it. The URL should open in your preferred browser, whatever that should be. 
Please note that any email client should support launching any browser, 
whether the dev built in support for it or not. Yes, I know there are the xdg* 
scripts, but tally up the number of things a user would want to work like 
this, tally up the number of scripts in the infinite number of locations this 
will take, and then ask the user to "pick one".

Example: Notifications. I have 3 (yes, three!!) kinds of popups that show up 
here daily. There's KDE's system which is the majority of them, some GTK apps 
throw popups in the top right corner where I don't want them and them then 
there's Skype which does it's own thing. God, you gotta love proprietary 
sekrit apps </sarcasm>. The solution is a notification service, apps send 
their notifications to it and the service does whatever the user configured it 
to do with the notification. Note that the user is in control here, the user 
says what happens with popups and does it in one central place and the apps 
does one thing and one thing only with it's notifications: sends them. It's 
like syslogger, letting the app concentrate on it's real purpose (which is not 
logging, and definitely is not making sure it doesn't clobber log files from 
any other apps that might be running).

See where this is going? Do you need a hundred more examples?

When you have arbitrary, unknown (at install time) sources of data that may 
interoperate with other arbitrary, unknown (at install time) sinks of data, 
good data modelling says that a known broker of data should sit in the middle, 
which is generic enough for anything to be able to use it. 

And the transport for that is dbus.

Just to bring this back to your original statement of Unix philosophy. IPC on 
modern desktops conforms exactly to the Unix philosophy. Apps were moving away 
from that and were becoming IM clients cum custom loggers cum notifiers cum 
<insert any other crap here>.

Standardized IPC is moving back TOWARDS the Unix philosophy, not away from it. 
Apps can now concentrate on their core function, and hand over the integration 
aspects to something else dedicated to IPC and nothing else. The apps now 
merely does the minimum required to hand over data to the service via a 
messaging bus.

Which if you look at it in that light, is EXACTLY the same rationale as a 
syslogger. Do you use a syslogger? Why?

If you don;t like all this integration stuff, and you have every right to not 
like it, then you should uninstall KDE and use Openbox (or similar lightweight 
WM). These WMs exist for users that do not want desktop integration. One thing 
you cannot have is the latest KDE without it's integration features.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Dale]

chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 22:54 -0600, Dale wrote:
>    
>> chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
>>      
> what _is_ that?! (Don't tell me, if we ignore it maybe it will go away)
>
>    
>>> On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 08:29 -0600, Dale wrote:
>>>        
>    
>> I use Seamonkey 2 right now.  You may be able to tell that by that pesky
>> line at the top.  It appears Seamonkey has a roach or two rambling
>> around in there.  Anyway, maybe it is just that the download is making
>> it slow enough that it just cancels the request when it is busy.  I
>> dunno.  I have noticed tho that I don't get emails for a while when I am
>> downloading something large but if I hit the 'get messages' button, then
>> I get a lot of messages that appear to be time stamped from a good while
>> ago.
>>
>> Maybe this is just a coincidence or something.
>>      
> maybe.  It could be that Seamonkey is detecting your network usage
> somehow, like azureus can, but I would think that emails are "important"
> and I doubt would be subject to this idea.
>
> Maybe the timestamps are when the message was "sent" but it took some
> time to get to you? (happens sometimes).  Could also be the senders
> clock is wrong...
>
> Otherwise I'd get a can of bug-spray, spray your cat5 and phone cables
> and see what falls out ;)
>
>    

It was really bad when I was on dial-up.  Of course, you have to keep in 
mind that I was only getting about 3KB/sec so it was so slow that it 
couldn't do two things at once anyway.  Heck, doing one thing was slow 
enough.  lol

I have only noticed it a few times since getting on DSL.  I get 80KB/sec 
now which is still slow by some measuring sticks but it is fast for me.  
The times I did notice it I was downloading a CD, DVD or something like 
that.  It has to be really busy a while to notice it.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1638 bytes --]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:31:21 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:

> > Because nine years ago, Linux desktop  software didn't use
> > interprocess communication. Of course things will still work, but not
> > necessarily everything. For example, Network Manager uses D-Bus to
> > tell programs when your Internet connection is available and not, so
> > your mail client goes into offline mode rather than pointlessly
> > trying to access your mailbox. KDE4 uses it quite extensively, ust as
> > KDE3 used DCOP.  
> 
>   There is too much solution-in-search-of-a-problem here.

Hardly, IPC is harrdly new, the amiga was doing ti 25 years ago and
shortly after that it became available to user scripts.

> XMMS followed
> the original Unix philosophy... it did one thing did it right, namely
> playing audio.

Yes, and if you have a number of programs, each doing one job only, they
need to be able to communicate in order to do the larger job. Imagine a
building site where the bricklayers, plasterers, electricians an
plumbers didn't talk to each other or the project manager.

In a shall, pipes can be used for IPC, but that doesn't work on a desktop
so something else was needed. This has always been true, all that is
new(ish) is that D-Bus is now the something else, and it is a global
standard. DCOP was good, but it only worked with KDE programs, D-Bus
means that your system is just that and not a bunch of programs each
going their own way, ignoring each other and duplicating effort. If you
want an OS like that, I hear they produce one in Redmond.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

If it isn't broken, I can fix it.

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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Zeerak Waseem]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 09:05:46 +0100, Alan McKinnon  
<alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday 11 February 2010 09:31:21 Walter Dnes wrote:
>> On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 02:18:43PM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote
>>
>> > On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:57:57 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
>> > > > but D-Bus provides a standard way for applications to communicate
>> > > > with one another and removing it can stop your desktop working as
>> > > > it should.
>> > > >
>> > >   Then how did things manage to work on my systems for the past 9
>> > >   years,
>> > >
>> > > pray tell?
>> >
>> > Because nine years ago, Linux desktop  software didn't use  
>> interprocess
>> > communication. Of course things will still work, but not necessarily
>> > everything. For example, Network Manager uses D-Bus to tell programs  
>> when
>> > your Internet connection is available and not, so your mail client  
>> goes
>> > into offline mode rather than pointlessly trying to access your  
>> mailbox.
>> > KDE4 uses it quite extensively, ust as KDE3 used DCOP.
>>
>>   There is too much solution-in-search-of-a-problem here.  XMMS followed
>> the original Unix philosophy... it did one thing did it right, namely
>> playing audio.  Unfortunately, XMMS was hard-coded to use a now obsolete
>> GTK library.
>
> Unfortunately, that's analogous to a business employing 5 people, all of  
> whom
> do their own thing all the time with no inter-person communication and  
> no co-
> ordination. Perhaps they might scribble a note on a white board once a  
> day,
> but that's about it.
>
>>   The "successor" to XMMS is Audacious.  It seems to subscribe to the
>> Microsoft philosophy, and tries to do everything under the sun, and
>> pretends it's a server, which requires dbus.  Is it *REALLY* necessary?
>> I used XMMS to play mp3's and Live365.com.  I ended up switching to
>> mpg123 for both functions when XMMS was dropped, and then to the Flash
>> player for Live365.  I emerged Audacious, but unmerged it when I saw the
>> post-install warning that said not to submit any Audacious bug reports
>> if I don't have dbus installed.
>
> Modern desktops are integrated, because that's what users want. Any two  
> apps
> should be able to inter-communicate wherever that communication makes  
> sense.
>
> Example: You have any old arbitrary email client. A mail contains a URL.  
> Click
> it. The URL should open in your preferred browser, whatever that should  
> be.
> Please note that any email client should support launching any browser,
> whether the dev built in support for it or not. Yes, I know there are  
> the xdg*
> scripts, but tally up the number of things a user would want to work like
> this, tally up the number of scripts in the infinite number of locations  
> this
> will take, and then ask the user to "pick one".
>
> Example: Notifications. I have 3 (yes, three!!) kinds of popups that  
> show up
> here daily. There's KDE's system which is the majority of them, some GTK  
> apps
> throw popups in the top right corner where I don't want them and them  
> then
> there's Skype which does it's own thing. God, you gotta love proprietary
> sekrit apps </sarcasm>. The solution is a notification service, apps send
> their notifications to it and the service does whatever the user  
> configured it
> to do with the notification. Note that the user is in control here, the  
> user
> says what happens with popups and does it in one central place and the  
> apps
> does one thing and one thing only with it's notifications: sends them.  
> It's
> like syslogger, letting the app concentrate on it's real purpose (which  
> is not
> logging, and definitely is not making sure it doesn't clobber log files  
> from
> any other apps that might be running).
>
> See where this is going? Do you need a hundred more examples?
>
> When you have arbitrary, unknown (at install time) sources of data that  
> may
> interoperate with other arbitrary, unknown (at install time) sinks of  
> data,
> good data modelling says that a known broker of data should sit in the  
> middle,
> which is generic enough for anything to be able to use it.
>
> And the transport for that is dbus.
>
> Just to bring this back to your original statement of Unix philosophy.  
> IPC on
> modern desktops conforms exactly to the Unix philosophy. Apps were  
> moving away
> from that and were becoming IM clients cum custom loggers cum notifiers  
> cum
> <insert any other crap here>.
>
> Standardized IPC is moving back TOWARDS the Unix philosophy, not away  
> from it.
> Apps can now concentrate on their core function, and hand over the  
> integration
> aspects to something else dedicated to IPC and nothing else. The apps now
> merely does the minimum required to hand over data to the service via a
> messaging bus.
>
> Which if you look at it in that light, is EXACTLY the same rationale as a
> syslogger. Do you use a syslogger? Why?
>
> If you don;t like all this integration stuff, and you have every right  
> to not
> like it, then you should uninstall KDE and use Openbox (or similar  
> lightweight
> WM). These WMs exist for users that do not want desktop integration. One  
> thing
> you cannot have is the latest KDE without it's integration features.
>
>

True, but even those using Openbox, icewm, etc. were introduced to the  
mess that HAL is, and also to dbus. Sure you can choose not to have  
hal/dbus/*kit, but then you also choose not to use a growing number of  
apps that seem to depend on it. The way I see it, they should be optional  
features. If you've got the useflags set, great. If not, then it'll still  
be able to compile and run.

-- 
Zeerak

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 11 February 2010 23:40:37 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> True, but even those using Openbox, icewm, etc. were introduced to the  
> mess that HAL is, and also to dbus. Sure you can choose not to have  
> hal/dbus/*kit, but then you also choose not to use a growing number of  
> apps that seem to depend on it. The way I see it, they should be optional  
> features. If you've got the useflags set, great. If not, then it'll still  
> be able to compile and run.

And what exactly is the problem with dbus? At 2MB, it's one of the smallest 
apps on my notebook. It's memory usage is miniscule, I have to invoke magic to 
get it to show up in top.

All I hear from the anti-dbus crowd is complaints "that it's there" and not a 
single shred of evidence, fact or numbers anywhere to back up why it might be 
a bad thing.

Let's rather all sit down and add up the the potential code and resource 
REDUCTION from dbus due to duplicated functionality being removed from 
multiple apps.
 
Complaints that reduce to "it's there now and it wasn't there before" cannot 
be valid for that reason alone - inotify is there now and wasn't there before, 
the resource reduction from it's being added is miniscule compared to the 
amount of polling we now do not have to do. Many other examples exist.

hal is different and in a category of it's own; it's resource usage is very 
small but the developer screwed up by making it complex for users (for the 
machine it's actually quite simple). We can fix that, and are - udev. I don't 
see anyone complaining about it being there now and not being there before. 
Anyone remember what came before udev? Who remembers trying to figure out 
devfs? Or MKNODE?

Do keep in mind that even simple WMs use some form of IPC (well, maybe twm 
doesn't). The dev has various schemes he can use from pipes on the command 
line to named pipes and fifos, or he can use a message bus.

Personally, I'd go with the latter even if only becuase somebody else with a 
proven track record is maintaining it (so I don't have to)


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Zeerak Waseem]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:13:14 +0100, Alan McKinnon  
<alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday 11 February 2010 23:40:37 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
>> True, but even those using Openbox, icewm, etc. were introduced to the
>> mess that HAL is, and also to dbus. Sure you can choose not to have
>> hal/dbus/*kit, but then you also choose not to use a growing number of
>> apps that seem to depend on it. The way I see it, they should be  
>> optional
>> features. If you've got the useflags set, great. If not, then it'll  
>> still
>> be able to compile and run.
>
> And what exactly is the problem with dbus? At 2MB, it's one of the  
> smallest
> apps on my notebook. It's memory usage is miniscule, I have to invoke  
> magic to
> get it to show up in top.
>
> All I hear from the anti-dbus crowd is complaints "that it's there" and  
> not a
> single shred of evidence, fact or numbers anywhere to back up why it  
> might be
> a bad thing.
>
> Let's rather all sit down and add up the the potential code and resource
> REDUCTION from dbus due to duplicated functionality being removed from
> multiple apps.
> Complaints that reduce to "it's there now and it wasn't there before"  
> cannot
> be valid for that reason alone - inotify is there now and wasn't there  
> before,
> the resource reduction from it's being added is miniscule compared to the
> amount of polling we now do not have to do. Many other examples exist.
>
> hal is different and in a category of it's own; it's resource usage is  
> very
> small but the developer screwed up by making it complex for users (for  
> the
> machine it's actually quite simple). We can fix that, and are - udev. I  
> don't
> see anyone complaining about it being there now and not being there  
> before.
> Anyone remember what came before udev? Who remembers trying to figure out
> devfs? Or MKNODE?
>
> Do keep in mind that even simple WMs use some form of IPC (well, maybe  
> twm
> doesn't). The dev has various schemes he can use from pipes on the  
> command
> line to named pipes and fifos, or he can use a message bus.
>
> Personally, I'd go with the latter even if only becuase somebody else  
> with a
> proven track record is maintaining it (so I don't have to)
>
>

Oh there's not much of a problem with dbus to be quite honest. But that  
perhaps is a bit of the point, that dbus seems like it might be, as  
someone else put it, a "solution-in-search-of-a-problem".
I can see why it can be smart, but I can also see why it's labeled as a  
bit useless. Particularly when your wm can handle all the inter-app  
communication that is necessary without dbus.
Like said, I don't particularly mind it for DE's but if you choose a wm,  
often you are willingly choosing to be lacking a few things that a DE  
does. I think that the issue for the "anti-dbus crowd" is that it's  
something that is being forced on them, despite having no need of it.

-- 
Zeerak

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:40:37 +0100, Zeerak Waseem wrote:

> True, but even those using Openbox, icewm, etc. were introduced to the  
> mess that HAL is, and also to dbus.

You're trying to assign guilt by association. They were also introduced
to X, hand edited conf files and a faster desktop. Are they all bad too?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

There's no place like http://www.home.com

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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Zeerak Waseem]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:37:08 +0100, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk>  
wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:40:37 +0100, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
>
>> True, but even those using Openbox, icewm, etc. were introduced to the
>> mess that HAL is, and also to dbus.
>
> You're trying to assign guilt by association. They were also introduced
> to X, hand edited conf files and a faster desktop. Are they all bad too?
>
>
Yes! :p

I'm not saying dbus is all that bad, just that it might be a bit  
unnecessary for a number of users. Which to me means, that it should be  
something that can be chosen, rather than something that's chosen for you.

-- 
Zeerak

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Donnerstag 11 Februar 2010, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> Particularly when your wm can handle all the inter-app
> communication that is necessary without dbus.

the problem is the WM can NOT handle all the inter-app communication that is 
needed by a modern desktop environment. Especially, when you have apps that 
are just frames around building blocks that have to talk to each other (like 
for example konqueror, that is just a gui to the dolphin, khtml, konsole, 
gwenview kparts).

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Zeerak Waseem]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:53:10 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann  
<volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:

> On Donnerstag 11 Februar 2010, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
>> Particularly when your wm can handle all the inter-app
>> communication that is necessary without dbus.
>
> the problem is the WM can NOT handle all the inter-app communication  
> that is
> needed by a modern desktop environment. Especially, when you have apps  
> that
> are just frames around building blocks that have to talk to each other  
> (like
> for example konqueror, that is just a gui to the dolphin, khtml, konsole,
> gwenview kparts).
>
>
>

But it seems to me, that the apps that need the communication are in DE's.  
Which is fine, I just think that if you're choosing a smaller WM (Openbox,  
awesome, JWM, etc.), where there isn't a need for an inter-app  
communication that extensive, then it's a bit of an overkill really.

-- 
Zeerak

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Donnerstag 11 Februar 2010, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:53:10 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann
> 
> <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > On Donnerstag 11 Februar 2010, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> >> Particularly when your wm can handle all the inter-app
> >> communication that is necessary without dbus.
> > 
> > the problem is the WM can NOT handle all the inter-app communication
> > that is
> > needed by a modern desktop environment. Especially, when you have apps
> > that
> > are just frames around building blocks that have to talk to each other
> > (like
> > for example konqueror, that is just a gui to the dolphin, khtml, konsole,
> > gwenview kparts).
> 
> But it seems to me, that the apps that need the communication are in DE's.
> Which is fine, I just think that if you're choosing a smaller WM (Openbox,
> awesome, JWM, etc.), where there isn't a need for an inter-app
> communication that extensive, then it's a bit of an overkill really.

so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a broweser or 
mail app that they are offline?

And don't start with sockets. That will result in a nightmare. dbus is a clean 
solution to a huge problem. Apps have to talk to each other. The only way to 
keep it sane is a standardized IPC daemon like dbus.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Zeerak Waseem]

On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:03:27 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann  
<volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:

> On Donnerstag 11 Februar 2010, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
>> On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:53:10 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann
>>
>> <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> > On Donnerstag 11 Februar 2010, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
>> >> Particularly when your wm can handle all the inter-app
>> >> communication that is necessary without dbus.
>> >
>> > the problem is the WM can NOT handle all the inter-app communication
>> > that is
>> > needed by a modern desktop environment. Especially, when you have apps
>> > that
>> > are just frames around building blocks that have to talk to each other
>> > (like
>> > for example konqueror, that is just a gui to the dolphin, khtml,  
>> konsole,
>> > gwenview kparts).
>>
>> But it seems to me, that the apps that need the communication are in  
>> DE's.
>> Which is fine, I just think that if you're choosing a smaller WM  
>> (Openbox,
>> awesome, JWM, etc.), where there isn't a need for an inter-app
>> communication that extensive, then it's a bit of an overkill really.
>
> so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a broweser  
> or
> mail app that they are offline?
>
> And don't start with sockets. That will result in a nightmare. dbus is a  
> clean
> solution to a huge problem. Apps have to talk to each other. The only  
> way to
> keep it sane is a standardized IPC daemon like dbus.
>

Well how about something with sockets ;)

Personally, I don't see a big problem in a network connection manager not  
being able to tell various apps that they don't have a connection to the  
internet. If you're offline often you will know it, and if not you have  
something to look into.

But honestly, I don't have a solution to the problem, what I can however  
say is that my browser and my mail app, are pretty deft at realizing that  
their attempts to access a server, are in vain, without any network  
manager to tell them that they're offline. If there is any inter-app  
communication going on, it's not anything I know enough about to give a  
qualified guess about.


-- 
Zeerak

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Freitag 12 Februar 2010, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:03:27 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann
> 
> <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > On Donnerstag 11 Februar 2010, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> >> On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:53:10 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann
> >> 
> >> <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> >> > On Donnerstag 11 Februar 2010, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> >> >> Particularly when your wm can handle all the inter-app
> >> >> communication that is necessary without dbus.
> >> > 
> >> > the problem is the WM can NOT handle all the inter-app communication
> >> > that is
> >> > needed by a modern desktop environment. Especially, when you have apps
> >> > that
> >> > are just frames around building blocks that have to talk to each other
> >> > (like
> >> > for example konqueror, that is just a gui to the dolphin, khtml,
> >> 
> >> konsole,
> >> 
> >> > gwenview kparts).
> >> 
> >> But it seems to me, that the apps that need the communication are in
> >> DE's.
> >> Which is fine, I just think that if you're choosing a smaller WM
> >> (Openbox,
> >> awesome, JWM, etc.), where there isn't a need for an inter-app
> >> communication that extensive, then it's a bit of an overkill really.
> > 
> > so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a broweser
> > or
> > mail app that they are offline?
> > 
> > And don't start with sockets. That will result in a nightmare. dbus is a
> > clean
> > solution to a huge problem. Apps have to talk to each other. The only
> > way to
> > keep it sane is a standardized IPC daemon like dbus.
> 
> Well how about something with sockets ;)

because then you need all apps to talk the same 'language'. You also have to 
built in filters into every app to prevent 'malicious' or damaged messages from 
doing harmfull stuff. 

Every app. So from a workload, maintenance and security POV - a nightmare. Oh, 
and don't forget the wasted memory and CPU cycles because of all the 
duplicated code.


dbus is a clean and simple solution that reduces workload for the devs AND 
resources needed by the system. A win-win scenario.

> 
> Personally, I don't see a big problem in a network connection manager not
> being able to tell various apps that they don't have a connection to the
> internet. If you're offline often you will know it, and if not you have
> something to look into.

oh yeah, it is just a great thing that the mail app constantly tries to reach 
servers and then throws errors. Not like this needs zero cpu cycles and zero 
ram. It is so much worse that the mail app knows that there is nothing to do 
and that it can sleep on...

<sarcasm> 

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 12 February 2010 00:56:33 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:53:10 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann
> 
> <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > On Donnerstag 11 Februar 2010, Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> >> Particularly when your wm can handle all the inter-app
> >> communication that is necessary without dbus.
> > 
> > the problem is the WM can NOT handle all the inter-app communication
> > that is
> > needed by a modern desktop environment. Especially, when you have apps
> > that
> > are just frames around building blocks that have to talk to each other
> > (like
> > for example konqueror, that is just a gui to the dolphin, khtml, konsole,
> > gwenview kparts).
> 
> But it seems to me, that the apps that need the communication are in DE's.
> Which is fine, I just think that if you're choosing a smaller WM (Openbox,
> awesome, JWM, etc.), where there isn't a need for an inter-app
> communication that extensive, then it's a bit of an overkill really.

That's your error in logic.

You are assuming that smaller WMs don't need IPC. I believe that assumption to 
be false. If my belief is true, then your argument falls flat.

By way of example: printing. By no stretch of the imagination can printing be 
considered to be a niche function. How will an arbitrary app find your 
printers? There are multiple print server around. So, you could:

1. Say stuff it and build a print server into your app. We stopped doing that 
when DOS fell out of fashion.
2. Support all possible print systems. lpr anyone?
3. Or just use IPC and let dedicated print middleware deal with it.

Multimedia buttons. One of the most confounding things on modern hardware are 
multimedia buttons. Volume is easy - make it adjust the sound server. Or you 
could use keybindings and have the wm do it, or you could send the keypresses 
to the configured audio app. And which one is that? Many apps do sound, which 
one will get the buttom focus?

Even minimal WMs have many more such examples. Removing a sane IPC method that 
can be used everywhere instead of multiple implementations of similar 
functionality makes about as much engineering sense as claiming you don't need 
pipes in a shell.

IPC is all about, perhaps you have not considered just how far that rabbit 
hole actually goes.




-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 12 February 2010 01:10:58 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> But honestly, I don't have a solution to the problem, what I can however  
> say is that my browser and my mail app, are pretty deft at realizing that  
> their attempts to access a server, are in vain, without any network  
> manager to tell them that they're offline. If there is any inter-app  
> communication going on, it's not anything I know enough about to give a  
> qualified guess about.

So do this then:

Build a desktop from old ebuilds and tarballs from a time when dbus was not 
prevalent. Make sure that the result is somewhat comparable to what you like 
to have now. Note the code sizes and other metrics of complexity. Note 
resource usage.

Then examine the code for all the major apps you have, find the IPC-type 
functionality they have and remove it. Rebuild everything. Note the code sizes 
and other metrics of complexity. Note resource usage.

Compare these two sets of numbers. Then run your new IPC-less machine. Let us 
know how that works out for you. 

At the very least you will gain an understanding of just how much IPC is going 
on even in minimal environments.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Iain Buchanan]

On Fri, 2010-02-12 at 00:21 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> oh yeah, it is just a great thing that the mail app constantly tries to reach 
> servers and then throws errors. Not like this needs zero cpu cycles and zero 
> ram. It is so much worse that the mail app knows that there is nothing to do 
> and that it can sleep on...
> 
> <sarcasm> 

worse than "constantly tries to reach servers and then throws errors",
evolution will stop you from closing it down or changing the online /
offline state, unless you send it a SIGKILL.  Very annoying.  That's why
I started using NetworkManager and the networkmanager USE flag for
evolution...
-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

You!  What PLANET is this!
		-- McCoy, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Freitag 12 Februar 2010, Iain Buchanan wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-02-12 at 00:21 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > oh yeah, it is just a great thing that the mail app constantly tries to
> > reach servers and then throws errors. Not like this needs zero cpu
> > cycles and zero ram. It is so much worse that the mail app knows that
> > there is nothing to do and that it can sleep on...
> > 
> > <sarcasm>
> 
> worse than "constantly tries to reach servers and then throws errors",
> evolution will stop you from closing it down or changing the online /
> offline state, unless you send it a SIGKILL.  Very annoying.  That's why
> I started using NetworkManager and the networkmanager USE flag for
> evolution...

well, evolution is broken beyond help anyway ;)

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Zeerak Waseem]

On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:31:26 +0100, Alan McKinnon  
<alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Friday 12 February 2010 01:10:58 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
>> But honestly, I don't have a solution to the problem, what I can however
>> say is that my browser and my mail app, are pretty deft at realizing  
>> that
>> their attempts to access a server, are in vain, without any network
>> manager to tell them that they're offline. If there is any inter-app
>> communication going on, it's not anything I know enough about to give a
>> qualified guess about.
>
> So do this then:
>
> Build a desktop from old ebuilds and tarballs from a time when dbus was  
> not
> prevalent. Make sure that the result is somewhat comparable to what you  
> like
> to have now. Note the code sizes and other metrics of complexity. Note
> resource usage.
>
> Then examine the code for all the major apps you have, find the IPC-type
> functionality they have and remove it. Rebuild everything. Note the code  
> sizes
> and other metrics of complexity. Note resource usage.
>
> Compare these two sets of numbers. Then run your new IPC-less machine.  
> Let us
> know how that works out for you.
>
> At the very least you will gain an understanding of just how much IPC is  
> going
> on even in minimal environments.
>

Well, I'll have to tell you, that I might just do that one of these days,  
because like you say. If nothing else I'll gain an understanding of it.
As you suggested in the last mail, I don't think I've considered all the  
different uses of IPC. :-)

-- 
Zeerak

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:47:39 +0100, Zeerak Waseem wrote:

> I'm not saying dbus is all that bad, just that it might be a bit  
> unnecessary for a number of users. Which to me means, that it should
> be something that can be chosen, rather than something that's chosen
> for you.

It's not there for the users, it's there for the software. How much better
would that software be if the developers spent half their time writing
code to communicate, write to logs and all the other standard tasks. Next
you'll suggest that filesystems should be optional because the apps can
always work out which disk blocks to use by themselves. Don't get me
started on compilers, what a bloated waste of resources when apps could
be written in hand crafted assembly.


-- 
Neil Bothwick



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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:35:10 +0100, Zeerak Waseem wrote:

> Oh there's not much of a problem with dbus to be quite honest. But
> that perhaps is a bit of the point, that dbus seems like it might be,
> as someone else put it, a "solution-in-search-of-a-problem".

Yes, it could be what one person called it, or it could be the efficient
way for applications to share code and resources that a dozen people have
described it as.

-- 
Neil Bothwick

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." - Benjamin
Franklin

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[gentoo-user] Re: How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[walt]

On 02/11/2010 03:03 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
 > ...
> And don't start with sockets. That will result in a nightmare. dbus is a clean
> solution to a huge problem. Apps have to talk to each other. The only way to
> keep it sane is a standardized IPC daemon like dbus.

Aha!  This is a question that has confused me since I was still in diapers.
(And may be in them again soon enough :)

Could you (or anyone else here) give us a really dumbed-down summary
of why a dev would want/need to use a socket, versus a pipe, versus
a signal, versus dbus, versus, well, whatever else is out there?

Many thanks.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 12 February 2010 04:24:33 walt wrote:
> On 02/11/2010 03:03 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>  > ...
> > 
> > And don't start with sockets. That will result in a nightmare. dbus is a
> > clean solution to a huge problem. Apps have to talk to each other. The
> > only way to keep it sane is a standardized IPC daemon like dbus.
> 
> Aha!  This is a question that has confused me since I was still in diapers.
> (And may be in them again soon enough :)
> 
> Could you (or anyone else here) give us a really dumbed-down summary
> of why a dev would want/need to use a socket, versus a pipe, versus
> a signal, versus dbus, versus, well, whatever else is out there?

A pipe is a quick and dirty means of connecting two processes. Shove stuff in 
one end and it comes out the other end. What the other end does with it is up 
to the other end. A pipe (|) in a shell is the same thing, built for you 
automagically. Used within an app you must construct the pipe in code. An 
example would be reading a text file and inserting the line into a database. 
On the command line you would do

tail -f /path/to/data/file | /path/to/insert/script

A socket does the same thing in the style of networking as opposed to a raw 
pipe. All your local X clients do this, the X server created a socket and the 
clients plug into it. This is good because X is a networked gui system so you 
just do networking everywhere even if the server and client are on the same 
box.

You use dbus if any old app needs to get an idea across to any other old app 
and you don't know who is doing what. You are always aware of what is at the 
end of a pipe (you built the thing) but if your jabber client wants a 
notification to be sent of an incoming message, it doesn't know or care how 
this is done - that is up to the notification apps. This is analogous to 
posting to a mailing list and asking anyone who knows the answer to a question 
to please speak up.

A signal is a specific message you send to a specific process via the kernel. 
Send signal 15 to a process's PID and the kernel will relay it. The message 
will be interpreted as "shut yourself down now".

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 12 February 2010 01:52:37 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:31:26 +0100, Alan McKinnon
> 
> <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Friday 12 February 2010 01:10:58 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
> >> But honestly, I don't have a solution to the problem, what I can however
> >> say is that my browser and my mail app, are pretty deft at realizing
> >> that
> >> their attempts to access a server, are in vain, without any network
> >> manager to tell them that they're offline. If there is any inter-app
> >> communication going on, it's not anything I know enough about to give a
> >> qualified guess about.
> > 
> > So do this then:
> > 
> > Build a desktop from old ebuilds and tarballs from a time when dbus was
> > not
> > prevalent. Make sure that the result is somewhat comparable to what you
> > like
> > to have now. Note the code sizes and other metrics of complexity. Note
> > resource usage.
> > 
> > Then examine the code for all the major apps you have, find the IPC-type
> > functionality they have and remove it. Rebuild everything. Note the code
> > sizes
> > and other metrics of complexity. Note resource usage.
> > 
> > Compare these two sets of numbers. Then run your new IPC-less machine.
> > Let us
> > know how that works out for you.
> > 
> > At the very least you will gain an understanding of just how much IPC is
> > going
> > on even in minimal environments.
> 
> Well, I'll have to tell you, that I might just do that one of these days,
> because like you say. If nothing else I'll gain an understanding of it.
> As you suggested in the last mail, I don't think I've considered all the
> different uses of IPC. :-)

A lot of that was tongue in cheek :-)

If you do manage to pull off that monumental purge and get something that 
runs, you'll have enough information to build a PhD thesis around. 

OK, maybe not a PhD. maybe a Masters.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Zeerak Waseem]

On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:53:20 +0100, Alan McKinnon  
<alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Friday 12 February 2010 01:52:37 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
>> On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:31:26 +0100, Alan McKinnon
>>
>> <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Friday 12 February 2010 01:10:58 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
>> >> But honestly, I don't have a solution to the problem, what I can  
>> however
>> >> say is that my browser and my mail app, are pretty deft at realizing
>> >> that
>> >> their attempts to access a server, are in vain, without any network
>> >> manager to tell them that they're offline. If there is any inter-app
>> >> communication going on, it's not anything I know enough about to  
>> give a
>> >> qualified guess about.
>> >
>> > So do this then:
>> >
>> > Build a desktop from old ebuilds and tarballs from a time when dbus  
>> was
>> > not
>> > prevalent. Make sure that the result is somewhat comparable to what  
>> you
>> > like
>> > to have now. Note the code sizes and other metrics of complexity. Note
>> > resource usage.
>> >
>> > Then examine the code for all the major apps you have, find the  
>> IPC-type
>> > functionality they have and remove it. Rebuild everything. Note the  
>> code
>> > sizes
>> > and other metrics of complexity. Note resource usage.
>> >
>> > Compare these two sets of numbers. Then run your new IPC-less machine.
>> > Let us
>> > know how that works out for you.
>> >
>> > At the very least you will gain an understanding of just how much IPC  
>> is
>> > going
>> > on even in minimal environments.
>>
>> Well, I'll have to tell you, that I might just do that one of these  
>> days,
>> because like you say. If nothing else I'll gain an understanding of it.
>> As you suggested in the last mail, I don't think I've considered all the
>> different uses of IPC. :-)
>
> A lot of that was tongue in cheek :-)
>
> If you do manage to pull off that monumental purge and get something that
> runs, you'll have enough information to build a PhD thesis around.
>
> OK, maybe not a PhD. maybe a Masters.
>
>

Hehe, it read :-)

I'll be sure to remember that when I have to write my masters, quite  
possibly also about the same time I'll be done with the purge and getting  
it working ;)

-- 
Zeerak

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Graham Murray]

Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> writes:

> so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a broweser or 
> mail app that they are offline?

Why does the app need to know? Browsers normally have an online/offline
menu selection and if you try to browse to a site when your network is
offline then the browser will generate the appropriate error message. In
any case, these notifications are only really of use on a single-homed
non LAN connected system. On an office LAN, you may well be able to
still access your mail server but a problem means that you cannot access
any web sites. 

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Freitag 12 Februar 2010, Graham Murray wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> writes:
> > so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a broweser
> > or mail app that they are offline?
> 
> Why does the app need to know? 

others already posted examples why this is needed.

Also - why should I manually select something, when the system can do it for 
me?

Do you install your files by hand or do you let portage do the job?

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 12 February 2010 09:44:01 Graham Murray wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> writes:
> > so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a broweser
> > or mail app that they are offline?
> 
> Why does the app need to know? Browsers normally have an online/offline
> menu selection and if you try to browse to a site when your network is
> offline then the browser will generate the appropriate error message. In
> any case, these notifications are only really of use on a single-homed
> non LAN connected system. On an office LAN, you may well be able to
> still access your mail server but a problem means that you cannot access
> any web sites.

A network connection manager tells apps when the machine's interface goes 
down, not when the gateway is no longer available.

You have these two things conflated.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Graham Murray]

Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> writes:

> On Friday 12 February 2010 09:44:01 Graham Murray wrote:
>> Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> writes:
>> > so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a broweser
>> > or mail app that they are offline?
>> 
>> Why does the app need to know? Browsers normally have an online/offline
>> menu selection and if you try to browse to a site when your network is
>> offline then the browser will generate the appropriate error message. In
>> any case, these notifications are only really of use on a single-homed
>> non LAN connected system. On an office LAN, you may well be able to
>> still access your mail server but a problem means that you cannot access
>> any web sites.
>
> A network connection manager tells apps when the machine's interface goes 
> down, not when the gateway is no longer available.
>
> You have these two things conflated.

Which still does not explain why the applications need to know when a
network interface goes down but does not need to know when (for example)
the ADSL connection (via an external router) to the 'outside world' goes
down[1]. As far as both the application and the user are concerned the
effect is exactly the same in both cases - the application is
offline. If it is considered important to inform the application of one,
then it should be equally important to inform the application of the
other. If a network interface goes offline then the user needs to know,
so as to take corrective action, but I do not think that telling the web
browser and mail applications is the correct way of informing the user.

[1] Which in my experience, while not a frequent occurrence, happens
far more frequently than the network interface going down.  

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:21:22 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> > Could you (or anyone else here) give us a really dumbed-down summary
> > of why a dev would want/need to use a socket, versus a pipe, versus
> > a signal, versus dbus, versus, well, whatever else is out there?  

Alan's answered all of this except the last part. Whatever else includes
FIFOs, which are basically pipes that act like files. One program writes
to it, another reads from it. Alan's comments about pipes apply here too.

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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:42:26 +0000, Graham Murray wrote:

> >> Why does the app need to know? Browsers normally have an
> >> online/offline menu selection and if you try to browse to a site
> >> when your network is offline then the browser will generate the
> >> appropriate error message.

You're on a train, it goes into a 3G dead zone, your mailer hangs until
it times out, meaning you can't even read cached mails until that happens.

> >> In any case, these notifications are only
> >> really of use on a single-homed non LAN connected system.

In that particular example, yes. What's wrong with that? There are plenty
of people using laptops on wireless connections.

> Which still does not explain why the applications need to know when a
> network interface goes down but does not need to know when (for example)
> the ADSL connection (via an external router) to the 'outside world' goes
> down[1].


Who said it doesn't. Those are two separate situations, and a D-Bus aware
system can address one of them. Inability to handle the latter is not a
valid criticism of the former. That's like criticising a great footballer
for being rubbish at tennis.

> As far as both the application and the user are concerned the
> effect is exactly the same in both cases - the application is
> offline.

The symptom is the same but the cause, and treatment, are different.

> If it is considered important to inform the application of one,
> then it should be equally important to inform the application of the
> other. If a network interface goes offline then the user needs to know,
> so as to take corrective action, but I do not think that telling the web
> browser and mail applications is the correct way of informing the user.

So the the network manager has to send a D-Bus message to a notification
daemon which then tells the user to put his mailer in offline mode,
hoping he can do that before it tries to access the server again? I
thought computers were supposed to make life easier for us by automating
such mundane tasks. Your suggestion is a little like a washing machine
beeping at you to say "I've finished the rinse now, switch me to spin"
instead of just doing it.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Real women don't have hot flashes, they have power surges.

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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 12 February 2010 11:42:26 Graham Murray wrote:
> Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> writes:
> > On Friday 12 February 2010 09:44:01 Graham Murray wrote:
> >> Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> writes:
> >> > so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a
> >> > broweser or mail app that they are offline?
> >> 
> >> Why does the app need to know? Browsers normally have an online/offline
> >> menu selection and if you try to browse to a site when your network is
> >> offline then the browser will generate the appropriate error message. In
> >> any case, these notifications are only really of use on a single-homed
> >> non LAN connected system. On an office LAN, you may well be able to
> >> still access your mail server but a problem means that you cannot access
> >> any web sites.
> > 
> > A network connection manager tells apps when the machine's interface goes
> > down, not when the gateway is no longer available.
> > 
> > You have these two things conflated.
> 
> Which still does not explain why the applications need to know when a
> network interface goes down but does not need to know when (for example)
> the ADSL connection (via an external router) to the 'outside world' goes
> down[1]. As far as both the application and the user are concerned the
> effect is exactly the same in both cases - the application is
> offline. If it is considered important to inform the application of one,
> then it should be equally important to inform the application of the
> other. If a network interface goes offline then the user needs to know,
> so as to take corrective action, but I do not think that telling the web
> browser and mail applications is the correct way of informing the user.
> 
> [1] Which in my experience, while not a frequent occurrence, happens
> far more frequently than the network interface going down.

The network beyond the machine is completely outside the control of any app on 
the machine, that's why it is not checked for. Besides, if the gateway is 
down, the LAN is usually still up local things are probably accessible.

The most common case of the interface going down is the wireless kill switch 
pressed or the LAN cable pulled out. That's something the user would like to 
know due to many of them doing it a LOT. The system can send out a notify for 
that, which apps can chose to listen to or not. The most common case would be 
a popup saying "A cable is unplugged".

Mailers can then take themselves offline if they wish, and that ability 
depends on what the dev decided to support. Just because you don't personally 
see the point does not mean

a. It is pointless, or
b. The message bus should not support such things

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[pk]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a broweser or 
> mail app that they are offline?

I don't have a network connection manager and I don't need that function
in a browser, mail client or any other app.

> And don't start with sockets. That will result in a nightmare. dbus is a clean 

I've been using computers way before D-Bus came into action and I never
suffered from nightmares... ;-)

To me D-Bus is a bit like this:
Programmer1: (waves hands in the air) Oh, oh I know, let's invent a new
protocol that lets applications talk to each other. Way cool!
Programmer2: Oh yeah, it will simplify the situation so much. Let's do it!
Pragmatic guy: So, what are these apps going to talk about?
Programmer1 & 2 (in unison): Shut up! Don't spoil our fun by asking such
stupid questions!

But, this discussion is quite pointless as I see it since the people who
program these apps (like programmer1 & 2 above) are the ones who gets to
choose and most people just doesn't bother with the details; they just
throw more ("bigger", "better", "faster") hardware in an ever-evolving
race. Far from the unix philosophy of KISS. That's at least the way I
see it...

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Freitag 12 Februar 2010, pk wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a broweser
> > or mail app that they are offline?
> 
> I don't have a network connection manager and I don't need that function
> in a browser, mail client or any other app.
> 
> > And don't start with sockets. That will result in a nightmare. dbus is a
> > clean
> 
> I've been using computers way before D-Bus came into action and I never
> suffered from nightmares... ;-)

no, but you also head much less functionality.

> 
> To me D-Bus is a bit like this:
> Programmer1: (waves hands in the air) Oh, oh I know, let's invent a new
> protocol that lets applications talk to each other. Way cool!
> Programmer2: Oh yeah, it will simplify the situation so much. Let's do it!
> Pragmatic guy: So, what are these apps going to talk about?
> Programmer1 & 2 (in unison): Shut up! Don't spoil our fun by asking such
> stupid questions!
> 

and that is stupid.
You obviously don't know what you are talking about.

 If you start konqueror - for example, it is dbus telling konqueror to start 
as browser - or file manager. And to load the right kpart. Oh - and that 
loading of kparts? The messages are sent by dbus.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[pk]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

> 1. Say stuff it and build a print server into your app. We stopped doing that 
> when DOS fell out of fashion.
> 2. Support all possible print systems. lpr anyone?
> 3. Or just use IPC and let dedicated print middleware deal with it.

What's wrong with lpr?

> Multimedia buttons. One of the most confounding things on modern hardware are 
> multimedia buttons. Volume is easy - make it adjust the sound server. Or you 
> could use keybindings and have the wm do it, or you could send the keypresses 
> to the configured audio app. And which one is that? Many apps do sound, which 
> one will get the buttom focus?

Don't have them, don't use them. I don't use wireless on trains
either... and never will (unless someone puts a gun to my head).

> Even minimal WMs have many more such examples. Removing a sane IPC method that 
> can be used everywhere instead of multiple implementations of similar 
> functionality makes about as much engineering sense as claiming you don't need 
> pipes in a shell.

But D-Bus is much more than (simple) IPC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-process_communication

Oh well...

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Freitag 12 Februar 2010, pk wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > 1. Say stuff it and build a print server into your app. We stopped doing
> > that when DOS fell out of fashion.
> > 2. Support all possible print systems. lpr anyone?
> > 3. Or just use IPC and let dedicated print middleware deal with it.
> 
> What's wrong with lpr?
> 

besides being not really usefull anymore? Are you sure you have lpr? Which 
ones do you have? And do you have it configured for the right printers? What if 
you don't have lpr but cups?

> > Multimedia buttons. One of the most confounding things on modern hardware
> > are multimedia buttons. Volume is easy - make it adjust the sound
> > server. Or you could use keybindings and have the wm do it, or you could
> > send the keypresses to the configured audio app. And which one is that?
> > Many apps do sound, which one will get the buttom focus?
> 
> Don't have them, don't use them. I don't use wireless on trains
> either... and never will (unless someone puts a gun to my head).

you not. Millions of people do.

> 
> > Even minimal WMs have many more such examples. Removing a sane IPC method
> > that can be used everywhere instead of multiple implementations of
> > similar functionality makes about as much engineering sense as claiming
> > you don't need pipes in a shell.
> 
> But D-Bus is much more than (simple) IPC.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-process_communication

and because of that dbus is a great solution. Single solution for a wide range 
of problems. Which is pretty much anti-bloat.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[pk]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> You obviously don't know what you are talking about.

And you obviously do?

>  If you start konqueror - for example, it is dbus telling konqueror to start 
> as browser - or file manager. And to load the right kpart. Oh - and that 
> loading of kparts? The messages are sent by dbus.

I don't have konqueror nor do I use KDE/Gnome. And never will.

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[pk]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> besides being not really usefull anymore? Are you sure you have lpr? Which 
> ones do you have? And do you have it configured for the right printers? What if 
> you don't have lpr but cups?

Of course I use cups, don't be silly. Of course built without D-Bus support.

> you not. Millions of people do.

And have you counted these millions? Or are you claiming the people who
don't care about this functionality too?

> and because of that dbus is a great solution. Single solution for a wide range 
> of problems. Which is pretty much anti-bloat.

Great solution to what? What problems?

This discussion has already passed the silly stage...

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Freitag 12 Februar 2010, pk wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > You obviously don't know what you are talking about.
> 
> And you obviously do?
> 
> >  If you start konqueror - for example, it is dbus telling konqueror to
> >  start
> > 
> > as browser - or file manager. And to load the right kpart. Oh - and that
> > loading of kparts? The messages are sent by dbus.
> 
> I don't have konqueror nor do I use KDE/Gnome. And never will.
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Peter K

then why do you even care about dbus?

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Freitag 12 Februar 2010, pk wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > besides being not really usefull anymore? Are you sure you have lpr?
> > Which ones do you have? And do you have it configured for the right
> > printers? What if you don't have lpr but cups?
> 
> Of course I use cups, don't be silly. Of course built without D-Bus
> support.
> 
> > you not. Millions of people do.
> 
> And have you counted these millions? Or are you claiming the people who
> don't care about this functionality too?

well, just look at all those ubuntu users. Just for starters.

> 
> > and because of that dbus is a great solution. Single solution for a wide
> > range of problems. Which is pretty much anti-bloat.
> 
> Great solution to what? What problems?
> 
> This discussion has already passed the silly stage...
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Peter K

yes, it has. There is no question that dbus is a needed and good solution. 
Only some people keep this alive.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[pk]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> well, just look at all those ubuntu users. Just for starters.

Hm. And those ubuntu users have a choice? For the record, most people
using wireless anywhere are using OS's from Redmond or Cupertino
(Apple). They don't care about D-Bus either...

> yes, it has. There is no question that dbus is a needed and good solution. 

I do have that "question". All I want to say is that this is a matter of
opinion. It has nothing to do with solving a real-world problem; I guess
you will disagree with me on this as well but you see a problem where I
don't...

So in all silliness: "And now for something completely different"...
http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode07.htm

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Freitag 12 Februar 2010, pk wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > well, just look at all those ubuntu users. Just for starters.
> 
> Hm. And those ubuntu users have a choice? For the record, most people
> using wireless anywhere are using OS's from Redmond or Cupertino
> (Apple). They don't care about D-Bus either...
> 

I would like to point out that this is 'gentoo user' not 'talk about any os' 
or 'windows support'. You might be surprised to learn that gentoo is a linux 
distribution. So why do you bring windows or apple up?


> > yes, it has. There is no question that dbus is a needed and good
> > solution.
> 
> I do have that "question". All I want to say is that this is a matter of
> opinion. It has nothing to do with solving a real-world problem; I guess
> you will disagree with me on this as well but you see a problem where I
> don't...

the problems, dbus solves, have been discussed to death already. Maybe you 
should read Alan McKinnons mails again. You seem to have missed a lot. Neil 
Bothwick's mails are also something you should consider.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:23:41 +0100, pk wrote:

> To me D-Bus is a bit like this:
> Programmer1: (waves hands in the air) Oh, oh I know, let's invent a new
> protocol that lets applications talk to each other. Way cool!

Note that they are inventing a new protocol, not a new idea.

> Programmer2: Oh yeah, it will simplify the situation so much. Let's do
> it! Pragmatic guy: So, what are these apps going to talk about?

The same as they always talked about, but now they have a common protocol
that can work with everything. D-Bus is not so much a new concept but a
logical rationalisation of previous, disparate implementations.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.

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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Willie Wong]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 09:15:59PM +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > > as browser - or file manager. And to load the right kpart. Oh - and that
> > > loading of kparts? The messages are sent by dbus.
> > 
> > I don't have konqueror nor do I use KDE/Gnome. And never will.

> then why do you even care about dbus?

I don't use KDE/Gnome. But I care about dbus because my (new)
preferred network manager--wicd--requires it. Not that I mind having
it: in fact I find it possibly a useful piece of software. But I just
want to be show that it is possible for someone who doesn't even use X
to be affected by dbus. 

Cheers, 

W

-- 
Willie W. Wong                                     wwong@math.princeton.edu
Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire 
         et vice versa   ~~~  I. Newton

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Walter Dnes]

  Sorry about the delay replying.  I'm having major problems upgrading
to kernel 2.6.31-r6.

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 04:53:08PM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote
> On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:31:21 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:

> > XMMS followed
> > the original Unix philosophy... it did one thing did it right, namely
> > playing audio.
> 
> Yes, and if you have a number of programs, each doing one job only,
> they need to be able to communicate in order to do the larger
> job. Imagine a building site where the bricklayers, plasterers,
> electricians an plumbers didn't talk to each other or the project
> manager.

- I run Firefox
- I go to live365.com and log in
- I click on an icon, and Firefox starts up an audio player, and passes
  it the appropriate URL.
- I start reading/writing emails, whilst enjoying music in my headphones

  The audio player needs to communicate with my email client because...?

> Neil Bothwick
> 
> If it isn't broken, I can fix it.

  No comment.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 12 February 2010 21:23:41 pk wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells a broweser
> > or mail app that they are offline?
> 
> I don't have a network connection manager and I don't need that function
> in a browser, mail client or any other app.
> 
> > And don't start with sockets. That will result in a nightmare. dbus is a
> > clean
> 
> I've been using computers way before D-Bus came into action and I never
> suffered from nightmares... ;-)
> 
> To me D-Bus is a bit like this:
> Programmer1: (waves hands in the air) Oh, oh I know, let's invent a new
> protocol that lets applications talk to each other. Way cool!
> Programmer2: Oh yeah, it will simplify the situation so much. Let's do it!
> Pragmatic guy: So, what are these apps going to talk about?
> Programmer1 & 2 (in unison): Shut up! Don't spoil our fun by asking such
> stupid questions!
> 
> But, this discussion is quite pointless as I see it since the people who
> program these apps (like programmer1 & 2 above) are the ones who gets to
> choose and most people just doesn't bother with the details; they just
> throw more ("bigger", "better", "faster") hardware in an ever-evolving
> race. Far from the unix philosophy of KISS. That's at least the way I
> see it...


Is it really so hard to understand that dbus replaces functionality THAT YOU 
ALREADY HAVE MULTIPLE TIMES?

dbus is a net gain - it takes multiple implementations of similar goals and 
puts them in one place, reducing the duplication.

If you haven't already spotted it, this is the same process of logic that lead 
to dynamic libraries. Do you consider dynamic libraries to be a good thing?


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Graham Murray]

"Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> writes:

> - I run Firefox
> - I go to live365.com and log in
> - I click on an icon, and Firefox starts up an audio player, and passes
>   it the appropriate URL.
> - I start reading/writing emails, whilst enjoying music in my headphones
>
>   The audio player needs to communicate with my email client because...?
>

So that the email program can add a 'tag' in the signature of outgoing
emails so that the recipients know what music you were listening to when
composing the email :)

I have not seen this in email clients, but would not be surprised if
some did, but have seen this in IM programs - both Pidgin and kopete
have options/plugins to show the music you are listening to in your
status. 

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[pk]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> I would like to point out that this is 'gentoo user' not 'talk about any os' 
> or 'windows support'. You might be surprised to learn that gentoo is a linux 
> distribution. So why do you bring windows or apple up?

Because most of those "millions of users" you were refering to are using
 windows and macos... I met a non-sensical argument with another, as I
see it. Gentoo users are hardly millions (although I don't have any
figures to back that claim up).

> the problems, dbus solves, have been discussed to death already. Maybe you 
> should read Alan McKinnons mails again. You seem to have missed a lot. Neil 
> Bothwick's mails are also something you should consider.

I have read them all. Again, this is just a matter of opinion; you, Alan
and Neil thinks it solves a problem which I don't see. IPC has been
working for decades before D-Bus came along it. It just adds another
layer (the D-Bus protocol) on top of, for example, unix domain sockets
(which is one variant of IPC).

For the record I do have D-Bus installed because it's a compile-time
requirement for Audacious but I don't run the daemon (Audacious works
fine without it). It just sits there taking up space... Which I find
annoying. But again this discussion is pointless since the Audacious
programmers have introduced this (compilation) dependency. So if I wish
to go back to the way it was (before D-Bus) I'd better get hacking! ;-)

So let's agree that we disagree on this matter? :-)

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 12 February 2010 21:38:21 pk wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > 1. Say stuff it and build a print server into your app. We stopped doing
> > that when DOS fell out of fashion.
> > 2. Support all possible print systems. lpr anyone?
> > 3. Or just use IPC and let dedicated print middleware deal with it.
> 
> What's wrong with lpr?

Not all lot wrong with it really.

As long as you use printers from the era when lpr was written, it works just 
fine.

Now go buy the kind of thing managers usually buy - some weird Chinese thing 
no-one has ever heard of rebranded as an Olivetti where PCL 5 is the only 
thing you realistically use to get it to print.

Use lpr with that. Let us know how that works out for you.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 12 February 2010 22:14:53 pk wrote:
> > and because of that dbus is a great solution. Single solution for a wide
> > range  of problems. Which is pretty much anti-bloat.
> 
> Great solution to what? What problems?

As has been mentioned multiple times before by multiple people:

The problem it solves is consistent communication between different 
applications, removing the need to have that functionality repeated many times 
by every app that would like to communicate state to another app.

Yes, it is a generic bus designed to deal with generic data in a (mostly) 
transparent way.

Yes, if you use dbus for one or two functions only, then you have more 
functionality than you need.

However. ELF is analogous (with the exception that you don't have one or two 
binary apps), and nothing is stopping you from building everything statically, 
or still using .a

Do you use ELF? And if so, why? If dbus gives similar benefits in a different 
area, why are you complaining?

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[pk]

Neil Bothwick wrote:

> Note that they are inventing a new protocol, not a new idea.

Which is basically (if you read between the lines) what I've been trying
to say the whole time. Although it may be my english is no sufficient to
let that "shine" through... (English is not my native language).

> The same as they always talked about, but now they have a common protocol
> that can work with everything. D-Bus is not so much a new concept but a
> logical rationalisation of previous, disparate implementations.

Yes, but... As I see it this is mainly a convenience to the programmer
and no benefits to the users. Which, if I extrapolate, leads to todays
"nice" GUIs/DEs that can sing and dance and includes the proverbial
"kitchen sink".
 I use gentoo in order to decide for myself what I need and don't need,
in order to maximise my benefit from a linux installation; that means I
need to weigh the benefit of a certain function/app against the hardware
requirements. If I add another thing that runs in the background
(daemon) it does steal resources (however small) and it has to have some
benefit to me in order for me to think it worth it.

Need I say that I'm a minimalist? :-)

Thanks anyway for the rational, down-to-earth, answer instead of a rant.

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 13 February 2010 08:39:53 Walter Dnes wrote:
>   Sorry about the delay replying.  I'm having major problems upgrading
> to kernel 2.6.31-r6.
> 
> On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 04:53:08PM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote
> 
> > On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:31:21 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
> > > XMMS followed
> > > the original Unix philosophy... it did one thing did it right, namely
> > > playing audio.
> > 
> > Yes, and if you have a number of programs, each doing one job only,
> > they need to be able to communicate in order to do the larger
> > job. Imagine a building site where the bricklayers, plasterers,
> > electricians an plumbers didn't talk to each other or the project
> > manager.
> 
> - I run Firefox
> - I go to live365.com and log in
> - I click on an icon, and Firefox starts up an audio player, and passes
>   it the appropriate URL.
> - I start reading/writing emails, whilst enjoying music in my headphones
> 
>   The audio player needs to communicate with my email client because...?

It doesn't. But your example is stupid.

Apps need to talk to apps. Not all apps need to talk to all other apps. You 
gave a case where this is so, and somehow this proves your point.

It does not, and I shall show you why, with real life people:

People need to communicate with people. Without it, they accomplish very 
little. For this to work, there needs to be a minimum of limits on what 
happens. Now, there's someone in the basement at my work that refuels the 
generators. I COULD communicate to him if I needed to but that's unlikely.

I am the audio player, he is the mailer.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Willie Wong]

On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 11:17:01AM +0100, pk wrote:
> Yes, but... As I see it this is mainly a convenience to the programmer
> and no benefits to the users. Which, if I extrapolate, leads to todays
> "nice" GUIs/DEs that can sing and dance and includes the proverbial
> "kitchen sink".
>  I use gentoo in order to decide for myself what I need and don't need,
> in order to maximise my benefit from a linux installation; that means I
> need to weigh the benefit of a certain function/app against the hardware
> requirements. If I add another thing that runs in the background
> (daemon) it does steal resources (however small) and it has to have some
> benefit to me in order for me to think it worth it.

Neil, Peter, Alan: Can we end this thread please? There's gotta be a
threefold repetition rule a la chess for mailing lists. It was fun when
each of you were giving your understanding (or lack of) on what dbus
is and how it works. But when it degenerates to a cycle of "finding
more examples to illustrate earlier point" and "telling other party to
read previous posts", you are really just generating phantom traffic
for the list. 

So why don't y'all just take a deep breath, step away from the
computer, go and get some Chinese food (the New Year is tomorrow), and
try to remember to send flowers to your loved ones? I'm sure grumpy
somebodies are less fun to deal with than invisible grumpy geeks. 

Cheers, 

W
-- 
Willie W. Wong                                     wwong@math.princeton.edu
Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire 
         et vice versa   ~~~  I. Newton

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[pk]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Is it really so hard to understand that dbus replaces functionality THAT YOU 
> ALREADY HAVE MULTIPLE TIMES?

Nope. Besides, it doesn't _replace_ unix domain socket, named pipes
etc.; it merely adds another layer on top of them.

> dbus is a net gain - it takes multiple implementations of similar goals and 
> puts them in one place, reducing the duplication.
>
> If you haven't already spotted it, this is the same process of logic that lead 
> to dynamic libraries. Do you consider dynamic libraries to be a good thing?

I don't see how D-Bus would be comparable to dynamic libraries, no... It
would be more comparable to a specific implementation of a dynamic
library, which duplicates functionality from lower level APIs.

This discussion is a bit similar to the one we (me and you) had with
HAL; you think/thought that the idea behind HAL was good but the
implementation was less than satisfactory. I think/thought that HAL
is/was redundant. From the looks of it, it seems I'm getting what I want
from the new Xorg server release (1.8+) where the X server will rely
directly on udev (through libudev) for device discovery.

Please see my reply (dated 2010-02-13 11:17) to Neils email for more
details.

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 285 bytes --]

On Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:39:53 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:

>   The audio player needs to communicate with my email client because...?

This is a relevant and meaningful example because...?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Someone who thinks logically is a nice contrast to the real world.

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Neil Bothwick wrote:

> For example, Network Manager uses D-Bus to tell programs when
> your Internet connection is available and not, so your mail 
> client goes into offline mode rather than pointlessly
> trying to access your mailbox.

Why should an MUA care about some local interface at all ?
It doesnt say anything whether the server can be reached, it's
nothing more than guessing, that *might* be fine for trivial
setups but can cause big headache in more complex ones.

For example:

* LAN is up, but remote server is or LAN's uplink down,
  MUA wont learn about it this way
* local mailserver is falsely considered unreachable just
  because the LAN interface went down

There's no way around it: the MUA (or a local proxy) must
always check on itself whether a _particular_ remote server
is reachable and properly handling that.


And *IF* some application is interested in the such information,
why not just using the filesystem ?


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Example: You have any old arbitrary email client. A mail contains a URL. Click 
> it. The URL should open in your preferred browser, whatever that should be. 
> Please note that any email client should support launching any browser, 
> whether the dev built in support for it or not. 

Simply put a simple script in a defined, stardized location.
Or use plan9's plumber.

> Example: Notifications. I have 3 (yes, three!!) kinds of popups that show up 
> here daily. There's KDE's system which is the majority of them, some GTK apps 
> throw popups in the top right corner where I don't want them and them then 
> there's Skype which does it's own thing. God, you gotta love proprietary 
> sekrit apps </sarcasm>. The solution is a notification service, apps send 
> their notifications to it and the service does whatever the user configured it 
> to do with the notification. 

man 1 plumb

> Just to bring this back to your original statement of Unix philosophy. IPC on 
> modern desktops conforms exactly to the Unix philosophy. 

On dbus, everything's a file ?



cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells 
> a broweser or mail app that they are offline?

use the filesystem ?

guess what: I've got a filesystem (a tiny 9p server) which even
lets me control the network interfaces.


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Neil Bothwick wrote:

> You're on a train, it goes into a 3G dead zone, your mailer hangs until
> it times out, meaning you can't even read cached mails until that happens.

Probably fix that broken MUA (or let it run via an caching proxy) ?


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

> You are assuming that smaller WMs don't need IPC. I believe that assumption to 
> be false. If my belief is true, then your argument falls flat.

Guess what, there are even very small WMs that have an IPC, and a
very clear/portable/network-agnostic one: wmii uses 9P.

> By way of example: printing. By no stretch of the imagination can printing be 
> considered to be a niche function. How will an arbitrary app find your 
> printers? There are multiple print server around. So, you could:

lpr ?

If it's interface is not enough anymore, invent a new one.
Perhaps as a filesystem. 9P makes this *very* easy.

> Multimedia buttons. One of the most confounding things on modern hardware are 
> multimedia buttons. Volume is easy - make it adjust the sound server. 

man 1 plumb


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

> However. ELF is analogous (with the exception that you don't 
> have one or two binary apps), and nothing is stopping you from
> building everything statically, or still using .a

Actually, if libraries hadn't been grown that extremly fat,
but instead using small tailored ones and moving the redundant
complexity to their own services, we perhaps won't need it at
all, but would be fine with small static binaries (which can
startup much faster).


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > However. ELF is analogous (with the exception that you don't
> > have one or two binary apps), and nothing is stopping you from
> > building everything statically, or still using .a
> 
> Actually, if libraries hadn't been grown that extremly fat,
> but instead using small tailored ones and moving the redundant
> complexity to their own services, we perhaps won't need it at
> all, but would be fine with small static binaries (which can
> startup much faster).
> 
> 
> cu

startup time is not dependet on the size, harddisks are way too fast - but 
symbol resolution. More libs, more work to resolve them, longer startup times.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells
> > a broweser or mail app that they are offline?
> 
> use the filesystem ?
> 
> guess what: I've got a filesystem (a tiny 9p server) which even
> lets me control the network interfaces.
> 
> 
> cu

great for you. And how portable is your little solution?

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
>> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>> so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells
>>> a broweser or mail app that they are offline?
>> use the filesystem ?
>>
>> guess what: I've got a filesystem (a tiny 9p server) which even
>> lets me control the network interfaces.
>>
>>
>> cu
> 
> great for you. And how portable is your little solution?

On the front side, very portable *and* network agnostic. You can
reach the server from practically anywhere (assuming fw allows it)
as long as you can access 9P fileservers (in theory it should also
be re-exportable through other network filesystems, even i didn
try it yet ;-o).

The backend side (the actual interface controll stuff) yet is
linux-specific, but it can be easily adapted to other platforms.


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> startup time is not dependet on the size, harddisks are way 

Assuming you're using an harddisk (or another fast-enough
medium) at all.

> too fast - but symbol resolution. More libs, more work to
> resolve them, longer startup times.

Exactly. And that wouldn't be needed with static executables.

Of course this could be minimized by proper prelinking techniques
(some kind of JIT for dynamic linking ;-), but that's another
topic for its own.


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> >> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> >>> so how do you propose that a network connection manager tells
> >>> a broweser or mail app that they are offline?
> >> 
> >> use the filesystem ?
> >> 
> >> guess what: I've got a filesystem (a tiny 9p server) which even
> >> lets me control the network interfaces.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> cu
> > 
> > great for you. And how portable is your little solution?
> 
> On the front side, very portable *and* network agnostic. You can
> reach the server from practically anywhere (assuming fw allows it)
> as long as you can access 9P fileservers (in theory it should also
> be re-exportable through other network filesystems, even i didn
> try it yet ;-o).
> 
> The backend side (the actual interface controll stuff) yet is
> linux-specific, but it can be easily adapted to other platforms.

don't waste your time - dbis is already there...

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > startup time is not dependet on the size, harddisks are way
> 
> Assuming you're using an harddisk (or another fast-enough
> medium) at all.
> 
> > too fast - but symbol resolution. More libs, more work to
> > resolve them, longer startup times.
> 
> Exactly. And that wouldn't be needed with static executables.

no, but with static exes you have to recompile everything everytime a security 
bug is found. Or some other bug fixed. Oh - and didn't you just complain about 
bloat? Nothing means more bloat than static binaries.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> don't waste your time - dbis is already there...

dbus lets me access my network interfaces via filesystem ?


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> no, but with static exes you have to recompile everything 
> everytime a security bug is found.

That's the job of the distro buildsystem. Ah, and that dramatically
minimizes the chance that things break apart (i still remember
the old times when libc updates tended to be dangerous).

> Oh - and didn't you just complain about bloat? Nothing means
> more bloat than static binaries.

As already said, all this under the axiom that libs are *small*
and complex/redundant things are done by separate services.
Perhaps you might have a look at Plan9 and how its done there.


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > don't waste your time - dbis is already there...
> 
> dbus lets me access my network interfaces via filesystem ?

no, it is ported to different architectures.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
>> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>> don't waste your time - dbis is already there...
>> dbus lets me access my network interfaces via filesystem ?
> 
> no, it is ported to different architectures.

the only thing i have yet to port is the networking stuff.
everything else is just plain ansi-c using posix APIs.


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> >> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> >>> don't waste your time - dbis is already there...
> >> 
> >> dbus lets me access my network interfaces via filesystem ?
> > 
> > no, it is ported to different architectures.
> 
> the only thing i have yet to port is the networking stuff.
> everything else is just plain ansi-c using posix APIs.

and posix works everywhere ... yeah.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > no, but with static exes you have to recompile everything
> > everytime a security bug is found.
> 
> That's the job of the distro buildsystem. Ah, and that dramatically
> minimizes the chance that things break apart (i still remember
> the old times when libc updates tended to be dangerous).

and even better - just introduce a single patch/updated package and everything 
is fine. What you are describing is maybe nice with gentoo. But a nightmare if 
you want something stable. Recompiling everything is not an option.

Why do you think the whole industry went away from static - except for tiny 
embedded devices?

> 
> > Oh - and didn't you just complain about bloat? Nothing means
> > more bloat than static binaries.
> 
> As already said, all this under the axiom that libs are *small*
> and complex/redundant things are done by separate services.
> Perhaps you might have a look at Plan9 and how its done there.

no, under the axiom of sharable code. The size of a lib is not really 
important - except if you use everything. But if you compile in everything the 
lib does on a static basis, all your binaries are huge and bloated.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 870 bytes --]

On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:27:45 +0100, Enrico Weigelt wrote:

> > For example, Network Manager uses D-Bus to tell programs when
> > your Internet connection is available and not, so your mail 
> > client goes into offline mode rather than pointlessly
> > trying to access your mailbox.  
> 
> Why should an MUA care about some local interface at all ?
> It doesnt say anything whether the server can be reached, it's
> nothing more than guessing, that *might* be fine for trivial
> setups but can cause big headache in more complex ones.

I think this thread has had enough people trying to find specific use
cases where IPC would not be useful and trying to use that as some sort
of justification for it never being useful.

You're a little late for the party.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"There are no stupid questions, just too many inquisitive idiots."

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Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 14 February 2010 16:40:01 Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> > Just to bring this back to your original statement of Unix philosophy.
> > IPC on  modern desktops conforms exactly to the Unix philosophy.
> 
> On dbus, everything's a file ?

You are either ignorant, or trying to be a jackass. Either way, it's obvious 
you do not underatand Unix philosophy

"Everything is a file" is but one of many engineering concepts underpinning 
Unix. I really don't have the inclination to delineate them for you, I suggest 
you Google the topic - it will serve you well in future.

Meanwhile, here's the short description of the main principle behind what I 
said:

"A large collection of small programs, each of which does one thing well."

The one thing an MUA does well is NOT popup notifications but dealing with 
mail - retrieving it (or causing it to be retrieved), sending it (or causing 
it to be sent) and displaying it to be read.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 14 February 2010 20:44:32 Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > no, but with static exes you have to recompile everything
> > everytime a security bug is found.
> 
> That's the job of the distro buildsystem. Ah, and that dramatically
> minimizes the chance that things break apart (i still remember
> the old times when libc updates tended to be dangerous).
> 
> > Oh - and didn't you just complain about bloat? Nothing means
> > more bloat than static binaries.
> 
> As already said, all this under the axiom that libs are *small*
> and complex/redundant things are done by separate services.
> Perhaps you might have a look at Plan9 and how its done there.


To be fair, Plan9 is Unix done right.

For all it's power, Unix (the system, not just the kernel) has some very 
severe flaws. Why can't I prepend data to a file using any of the common 
shells? Why are pipes 1 input 1 output, instead of the more useful 1 input 
same data to 2 or more outputs? Why is the permission model so simplistic? Why 
is ELF so prone to bloat (or more accurately why do so many compilers generate 
such large libs?)

The answer is because of the available constraints at the time these things 
were introduced. Partly the amount of grunt available from systems of the 
time, partly the speed of disks, partly to keep things simple and to an 
irreducible minimum, with a huge helping of how easy a platform it is to 
develop on.

For better or worse, what we have is what we have and it's the sum total of 
the past.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[J. Roeleveld]

On Sunday 14 February 2010 15:27:45 Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Neil Bothwick wrote:
<snipped> 
> 
> And *IF* some application is interested in the such information,
> why not just using the filesystem ?

Because on flash-drives (Which are used in small devices and netbooks) you 
don't want every single status update to be written to the filesystem.
And with minimal memory, I don't want to have a ram-disk gobbling up the 
memory I have.

A simple message passed to apps which are listening is much better. It's 
short-lived and only uses (minimal) resources when the message is broadcast. 
After that, it doesn't linger, unless I am running an app that stores these 
messages somewhere. (Probably a debugger)

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

J. Roeleveld wrote:

>> And *IF* some application is interested in the such information,
>> why not just using the filesystem ?
> 
> Because on flash-drives (Which are used in small devices and netbooks) you 
> don't want every single status update to be written to the filesystem.
> And with minimal memory, I don't want to have a ram-disk gobbling up the 
> memory I have.

Why not simply using tmpfs ?
Or an specific synthetic filesystem ? 9P makes this really easy,
and network agnostic.


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Mike Edenfield]

On 2/15/2010 2:20 PM, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> J. Roeleveld wrote:
>
>>> And *IF* some application is interested in the such information,
>>> why not just using the filesystem ?
>>
>> Because on flash-drives (Which are used in small devices and netbooks) you
>> don't want every single status update to be written to the filesystem.
>> And with minimal memory, I don't want to have a ram-disk gobbling up the
>> memory I have.
>
> Why not simply using tmpfs ?
> Or an specific synthetic filesystem ? 9P makes this really easy,
> and network agnostic.

I'm kinda stunned that your arguments against D-Bus seems to boil down 
to "just use 9p instead" given that plumber is a basic element of 9p and 
does essentially the same job D-Bus does.  So you're just swapping one 
system-wide general-purpose IPC service out for another one?

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Montag 15 Februar 2010, Mike Edenfield wrote:
> On 2/15/2010 2:20 PM, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> > J. Roeleveld wrote:
> >>> And *IF* some application is interested in the such information,
> >>> why not just using the filesystem ?
> >> 
> >> Because on flash-drives (Which are used in small devices and netbooks)
> >> you don't want every single status update to be written to the
> >> filesystem. And with minimal memory, I don't want to have a ram-disk
> >> gobbling up the memory I have.
> > 
> > Why not simply using tmpfs ?
> > Or an specific synthetic filesystem ? 9P makes this really easy,
> > and network agnostic.
> 
> I'm kinda stunned that your arguments against D-Bus seems to boil down
> to "just use 9p instead" given that plumber is a basic element of 9p and
> does essentially the same job D-Bus does.  So you're just swapping one
> system-wide general-purpose IPC service out for another one?

he is just trolling around.

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[J. Roeleveld]

On Monday 15 February 2010 20:20:53 Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> J. Roeleveld wrote:
> >> And *IF* some application is interested in the such information,
> >> why not just using the filesystem ?
> >
> > Because on flash-drives (Which are used in small devices and netbooks)
> > you don't want every single status update to be written to the
> > filesystem. And with minimal memory, I don't want to have a ram-disk
> > gobbling up the memory I have.
> 
> Why not simply using tmpfs ?
> Or an specific synthetic filesystem ? 9P makes this really easy,
> and network agnostic.

Netbook: 1GB of ram, with Linux, I can easily run all the software I want , 
without need of any swap.
Can I do the same with 9P? Eg. will I be able to run all the software I use on 
my netbook without having to spent time on porting it all?
Is also all the hardware supported in 9P? Linux supports all the hardware in 
my netbook.

Unless the answer to this is a 100% yes, 9P is never going to be an option.

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Mike Edenfield]

On 2/16/2010 3:23 AM, J. Roeleveld wrote:

> Netbook: 1GB of ram, with Linux, I can easily run all the software I want ,
> without need of any swap.
> Can I do the same with 9P? Eg. will I be able to run all the software I use on
> my netbook without having to spent time on porting it all?
> Is also all the hardware supported in 9P? Linux supports all the hardware in
> my netbook.
>
> Unless the answer to this is a 100% yes, 9P is never going to be an option.

Just for reference, 9p is not Plan 9, it's only the Plan 9 network 
protocol/distributed file system, which you can use on Linux with the 
appropriate file system modules.

--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Mike Edenfield wrote:

> Just for reference, 9p is not Plan 9, it's only the Plan 9 network
> protocol/distributed file system, which you can use on Linux with the
> appropriate file system modules.

Right. Either you use the kernel module (which now is in mainline
for quite a long time), or 9pfuse, or one of the userland libraries
around (eg. libmvfs).

The basic idea behind this all is to use a filesystem as a primary
IPC interface. Files dont necessarily mean things stored on-disk,
but streams/communication-channels in an hierachical namespace.
(eg. /proc or /sys).

This way you have a very simple IPC mechanism using the very same
semantics as filesystems do traditionally. That's just consequently
using the "everything's a file"-metaphor. As everything's a file,
all an OS or an distributed environment has to provide is dispatching
filesystem operations from client to server, whereever they may
actually reside. For example, you can simply mount any Plan9 device
via 9P, from anywhere, as long as you get some 9P path there.


(BTW: 9P doesnt have the concept of ioctl()s. If some object has
more than just a single IO stream, it's modeled as an directory,
eg. containing some "ctl" file accepting additional commands, etc).


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?

[Enrico Weigelt]

Mike Edenfield wrote:

> I'm kinda stunned that your arguments against D-Bus seems to boil down
> to "just use 9p instead" 

No, we're talking about very different concepts. D-Bus is essentially
an generic RPC mechanism (with an asychronous signalling facility).
So it allows calling procedures on remote objects sending signals
to listeners. IOW: fundamental concept behind GObject, QObject, etc
put onto distributed level (but much simpler than CORBA, etc).

On the other hand, 9P is essentially just a filesystem protocol
which is very well suited for synthetic filesystems. The latter
is the key point: synthetic filesystem.
Instead of calling procedures, you model objects into directories
and files and simply work with common filesystem operations.
This is the same idea as behind procfs or sysfs, but on an
distributed level.


Hopefully, we agree that procfs and sysfs are a simple and easy
approach for accessing many many kernel-internal data using
very standard filesystem operations. Now imagine we hadn't them,
but needed to use separate syscalls or netlink operations. Wouldn't
it be ugly ?

> given that plumber is a basic element of 9p and
> does essentially the same job D-Bus does.

No, plumber is an 9P-based service which does the message
broadcasting/routing to listeners (easily programmable by an
special-purpose language). Since it's based on 9P, it can be used
anywhere 9P is available, fully platform independent and network
agnostic.

	http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/plumb.html



cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[gentoo-user] Rethinking binfmts [WAS: How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?]

[Enrico Weigelt]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Why is ELF so prone to bloat (or more accurately why do so many 
> compilers generate such large libs?)

Yes, that's an really good question. ELF has many things, that
are IMHO not really necessary or shouldn't even be used.

For example, debugging information doesnt need to exist within the
binary itself. An external file would be fine, too, and allows
removing them by standard file operations.

Another redundant thing is exec()'ing the dynamic linker from
userland: the kernel could load it along with the usual segments.
There could even be a default kernel-land dynamic linker (for
the 99.9% cases where no special linker is needed), it could
cache a lot of stuff.

If I were to design a new binfmt, it would look like this:

* Magic + file size + file hash
* userland linker filename (may be empty)
* 4x segment descriptor:
  -> packed-size, real-size, offset, encoding (compression,etc)
  -> #0: code, #1: data, #2: symbol table, #3: unused
* imports-list: virtual library name + namespace-id
* entry point (relative to code segment)
* symbol table (possibly compressed)
* [.. segment data ..]
...

All binaries would be libraries (no distinction at all),
everything's relocatable, entry points are executed in the
from leafs to root of the dependency tree.


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[gentoo-user] fat libraries [WAS: How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?]

[Enrico Weigelt]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Sonntag 14 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
>> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>> no, but with static exes you have to recompile everything
>>> everytime a security bug is found.
>> That's the job of the distro buildsystem. Ah, and that dramatically
>> minimizes the chance that things break apart (i still remember
>> the old times when libc updates tended to be dangerous).
> 
> and even better - just introduce a single patch/updated package and everything 
> is fine. What you are describing is maybe nice with gentoo. But a nightmare if 
> you want something stable. Recompiling everything is not an option.

hmm, you consider Gentoo unstable ? ;-o

> Why do you think the whole industry went away from static - except for tiny 
> embedded devices?

Is that so ? Then, why are so many closed-source applications
statically linked ?

> no, under the axiom of sharable code. The size of a lib is not really 
> important - except if you use everything. But if you compile in 
> everything the lib does on a static basis, all your binaries are
> huge and bloated.

Yes, lazy page-loading, any maybe even lazy evaluation (uuh, tricky!),
but this also comes with costs.

Rethink the idea of tiny libraries: there's much more that can be
reused. There're always not just reasons for choosing some particular
library, but also ones for NOT choosing it.

For example, imagine some app where a few of glib's functions would
be useful, but there're other big arguments against it (eg. resource
consumption, unstable API, etc). So we have to find that stuff we
could have used somewhere else, or write it on our own.

The major problem w/ these big libraries is that they're highly
redundant from a function viewpoint. Why do we need dozens of
libraries which all define such common ADTs like linked-lists,
polygons, etc, etc, etc on their own ? Why can't they just all
reuse other, small libraries ? At this point, I'm very much a
Prof.Wirth's side: have one module per ADT, which only does that
thing right, but nothing more.

Don't forget that this is far beyond runtime memory consumtion.
Memory is quite cheap today. But developer's manpower is not.
When I review all the OSS projects (yes, commercial ones tend
to be even worse) I've been involved in the last 15 years, I'd
count at least 30% is completely redundant, completely useless
spent resources. Just because bad design decisions.

Just ask around the gentoo-devs how much time they spent into
things like slotting, complex dependencies (conflicts, circular
deps, ...), etc, etc. that's all caused by reallybad design
decisions coming from the upstream. With clean sw design you'd
never ever had to waste a single second on it.


cu
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/

 cellphone: +49 174 7066481   email: info@metux.de   skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [gentoo-user] Rethinking binfmts [WAS: How the HAL are you supposed to use these files?]

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Mittwoch 17 Februar 2010, Enrico Weigelt wrote:

> For example, debugging information doesnt need to exist within the
> binary itself. An external file would be fine, too, and allows
> removing them by standard file operations.

man make.conf:

           splitdebug
                     Prior to stripping ELF etdyn and etexec files, the 
debugging info is stored for later use by various debuggers.  This
                     feature is disabled by nostrip.  For installation of 
source code, see installsources.

http://phajdan-jr.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-to-get-useful-backtraces-almost-
for.html

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/qa/backtraces.xml

With splitdebug enabled, Portage will still strip the binaries installed in 
the system. But before doing that, all the useful debug information is copied 
to a ".debug" file, which is then installed inside /usr/lib/debug (the complete 
name of the file would be given by appending to that the path where the file is 
actually installed). The path to that file is then saved in the original file 
inside an ELF section called ".gnu_debuglink", so that gdb knows which file to 
load the symbols from.

for someone so highly critical you should do some more reading.