Re: [gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 00:28 on Wednesday 17 November 2010, David W
> Noon did opine thusly:
>
>    
>> On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:20:02 +0100, Grant Edwards wrote about
>>
>> [gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?:
>>      
>>> On 2010-11-16, David W Noon<dwnoon@ntlworld.com>  wrote:
>>>        
>> [snip]
>>
>>      
>>>> No, the USE flags are purely a Portage thing.  The USE flags
>>>> determine which options are enabled/disabled when the ebuild runs the
>>>> equivalent of a ./configure script.  The defaults for the USE flags
>>>> are part of the ebuild, completely separate from upstream.
>>>>          
>>> But if the developers are required to duplicate the upstream
>>> "out-of-box" configuration,
>>>        
>> They aren't.  They are required to produce a stable package for Gentoo.
>>      
> The truth is that they are required to follow Gentoo QA guidelines.
>
> Sadly, it's an undeniable fact of life these QA guidelines are often just
> ignored for a variety of reasons, that the ebuilds make it into the tree
> anyway, that QA is often perceived as toothless and ineffectual, and that when
> flameeyes sees it happening he writes massive blogs about it and a select few
> hate him even more.
>
> None of this changes what *should* be, or that many devs take the guidelines
> seriously. If you were to ask the X devs why they enabled hal in the 1.7
> series by default and they answered "We (the X team) follow QA guidelines and
> track upstream defaults by default", then that would be a perfectly reasonable
> answer.
>
> If you then mentioned that their defaults broke Dale's setup, they'd likely
> answer "Who's Dale?" followed shortly by "None of us have hardware like Dale
> to test. Sorry 'bout that. Set USE=-hal"
>
> But we're all surmising here and I notice that none of us ever asked the devs
> *why* they made that default.
>
>    

I know my puter is special to me, I built this thing, but I didn't know 
it was that special.  Abit NF7 mobo with a PS/2 mouse and keyboard.  If 
that is so different, it's a wonder anyone had any luck with hal.  I 
just don't see anything special about that.  If I had some old crusty PC 
AT or PC XT or some brand spanking new thing that very few people have 
seen yet, then I could see that.  Mine is not that old or that new 
either.  By the way, my keyboard is about as old as my puter.  I did 
replace the mouse a few years ago tho.  The little laser thing went 
out.  I could click and scroll but no moving the pointer.

I also find it funny that it works fine without hal but fails miserably 
with it.  That makes me giggle.

This is Gentoo tho.  It's bleeding edge, warts and all.  o_O

Dale

:-)  :-)