Can't get HAL to work properly

eFFeeMMe · 2009-04-10 12:12:15

Hello everybody! This is the first distro I've ever tried which gives you substantial control over the installation process, and I like that a lot, but there are some things I probably didn't manage to do well. One of those is getting HAL to work as I tell it to via policies. I need for it to recognize my italian keyboard layout and automount ntfs partitions. I followed the instructions on the wiki, but I probably messed up, so can somebody briefly sum up the steps I need to make HAL do what I need?

Last edited by eFFeeMMe (2009-04-10 12:12:35)

Neo_The_User · 2009-04-13 16:25:40

i love being in-depth explaining everything so i'm sorry if i couldn't make it as breif as you wanted it to be
edit: original post was just a general outline

as root or sudo:

pacman -Syy
pacman -Syu
pacman -Sy hal dbus fam
nano /etc/rc.conf

In DAEMONS it should look like this (sort of:)

DAEMONS=(!syslog-ng !netfs !crond network fam dbus hal alsa gdm)

Now you can turn hal on 2 different ways. Reboot or just turn on. To turn on without reboot:

/etc/rc.d/hal restart

(You should probably turn on dbus too)

/etc/rc.d/dbus restart

(And fam)

/etc/rc.d/fam restart

Now after you do all that do this as root (log in AS root because it will be easier for me to tell you what exactly you need to do)

Xorg -configure

Now I forget off the top of my head what the exact location is so if it says No such file or directory in the first command, do the second one:

cp -L -vi /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Now you can install gdm and X and all that:

pacman -Sy gdm
Replace gnome with lxde or xfce4 or whatever
pacman -Sy gnome

Now fonts:

pacman -Sy ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-dejavu ttf-ms-fonts ttf-liberation

Turn on ntfs in DAEMONS though as I have mine off. Take the exclamation point out.

Hope that works!

Last edited by Neo_The_User (2009-04-14 17:47:17)

wonder · 2009-04-13 16:34:03

in fact that DAEMONS list that @Neo_The_User has pasted is a non-sense.

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng !netfs crond network hal alsa gdm)

i don't understand why he wanted to not have syslog-ng. i wonder if he wanted to read some logs properly. same for cron. in time you will have HUGE logs and can't be read properly.

dbus is started with hal before hal is started. dbus after hal is non-sense.

removed fam and install gamin. is better and you don't need to run as daemon.

also for gdm i prefer inittab way. if you have problems with x then you can run in runlevel 3 and do your job well without xorg to be runned.

Last edited by wonder (2009-04-13 16:35:29)

finferflu · 2009-04-13 20:06:02

Make sure you don't just blindly copy-paste things other users post. It is a very bad and at times dangerous habit. Always verify that the information provided actually makes sense.

Neo_The_User · 2009-04-13 23:58:37

I said "like" before daemons just for the record.

u_no_hu · 2009-04-14 06:39:17

Just correcting this so that any beginners who stumble on this wont get confused/misguided

Neo_The_User wrote:

i love being in-depth explaining everything so i'm sorry if i couldn't make it as breif as you wanted it to be
as root or sudo:
pacman -Syy
pacman -Syu
pacman -Sy hal dbus fam
nano /etc/rc.conf
In DAEMONS it should look like this (sort of:)
DAEMONS=(!syslog-ng !netfs !crond network fam hal dbus alsa gdm)

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng crond network fam dbus hal alsa )
but basically it depends on what services you want to run.

starting gdm in inittab is better.

Now you can turn hal on 2 different ways. Reboot or just turn on. To turn on without reboot:
/etc/hal restart

/etc/rc.d/hal start

(You should probably turn on dbus too)
/etc/dbus restart
(And fam)
/etc/fam restart

everything is /etc/rc.d/daemonname start

Now after you do all that do this as root (log in AS root because it will be easier for me to tell you what exactly you need to do)
Xorg -configure
Now I forget off the top of my head what the exact location is so if it says No such file or directory in the first command, do the second one:
cp -L -vi /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
No luck? Try this:
cp -L -vi /home/root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

There is no /home/root

Now you can install gdm and X and all that:
pacman -Sy gdm
Replace gnome with lxde or xfce4 or whatever
pacman -Sy gnome
Now fonts:
pacman -Sy ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-dejavu ttf-ms-fonts ttf-liberation
Turn on ntfs in DAEMONS though as I have mine off. Take the exclamation point out.
Hope that works!

I hope you meant netfs or nfsd here. ntfs-3g doesn't need a daemon AFAIK

u_no_hu · 2009-04-14 06:47:03

@eFFeeMMe

copy /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-keymap.fdi to /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-keymap.fdi and modify it for your layout

About automounting ntfs partions, check the forum/wiki as it depends on what you are using to automount and what error you get while mounting.

bernarcher · 2009-04-14 12:42:00

u_no_hu wrote:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng crond network fam dbus hal alsa )

Slight dissent:

Hal should be started as early as possible. There is no dbus daemon necessary, it will be automatically startet by hal. Not sure about fam, but it is rather basic, so I would place it early.

Thus I'd recommend:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng hal fam crond network alsa)

Last edited by bernarcher (2009-04-14 12:43:40)

Neo_The_User · 2009-04-14 15:19:53

Alright guys! Enough! I was going off memory of the beginners guide. Jesus christ! wtf is with you people? Deliberatly attacking me.... just like the guys on the ubuntuforums.

edit: why not just call me a "fag" while your at it too.

Last edited by Neo_The_User (2009-04-14 15:21:18)

wonder · 2009-04-14 15:29:23

nobody attacks you Neo_The_User. i/them just poiting out that you have mistakes in your rc.conf and , if you want, you can correct them. That is the nature of learning. Is your problem that you thing that when somebody corrects you is an attack.

Last edited by wonder (2009-04-14 15:31:32)

adamlau · 2009-04-14 16:30:06

Not really mistakes in Neo's rc.conf, that is just how he exampled it:

DAEMONS=(!syslog-ng !netfs !crond network fam hal dbus alsa gdm)

The above looks fine to me and should work, though perhaps it could be cleaned up a bit (!syslog-ng is not the best example to give to n00bs). Heck, I did a pacman -Rns on syslog-ng and dcron (and logrotate) so that my rc.conf looks like:

DAEMONS=(!netfs @hal @network @cups @oss)

Last edited by adamlau (2009-04-14 16:32:32)

Neo_The_User · 2009-04-14 17:41:33

adamlau wrote:

Not really mistakes in Neo's rc.conf, that is just how he exampled it:
DAEMONS=(!syslog-ng !netfs !crond network fam hal dbus alsa gdm)
The above looks fine to me and should work, though perhaps it could be cleaned up a bit (!syslog-ng is not the best example to give to n00bs). Heck, I did a pacman -Rns on syslog-ng and dcron (and logrotate) so that my rc.conf looks like:
DAEMONS=(!netfs @hal @network @cups @oss)

Exactly. It was just an example. Which is why I said "like" and I also said "sort of." Finally somebody who got the picture.

I have !syslog-ng for faster boot and shut down. ! indicates off. I only need alsa and network loaded on boot. I do not depend on HAL, dbus, nor fam as I load them by hand whenever I need them. What's this whole gamin thing about though?

Last edited by Neo_The_User (2009-04-14 17:43:32)

Inxsible · 2009-04-14 18:35:38

Neo_The_User wrote:

Exactly. It was just an example. Which is why I said "like" and I also said "sort of." Finally somebody who got the picture.
I have !syslog-ng for faster boot and shut down. ! indicates off. I only need alsa and network loaded on boot. I do not depend on HAL, dbus, nor fam as I load them by hand whenever I need them. What's this whole gamin thing about though?

syslog-ng is the one that logs all the errors and such in case of problems. But you probably know that already. You won't be able to check logs if you you ever get some errors during startup etc.

gamin is a drop in replacement for fam. It doesn't need to be started as a daemon unlike fam. works pretty much the same though. People say its also lighter on the resources, but I have never bothered to check my own usages for fam/gamin.

bernarcher · 2009-04-14 20:37:06

Neo_The_User wrote:

Alright guys! Enough! I was going off memory of the beginners guide. Jesus christ! wtf is with you people? Deliberatly attacking me.... just like the guys on the ubuntuforums.
edit: why not just call me a "fag" while your at it too.

Sorry, no harm meant. Really!
Only sharing some experiences of my own, There were ugly glitches here caused by hal starting too late.

But, in fact, I appreciated your efforts. Just keep on.

Last edited by bernarcher (2009-04-14 20:40:50)

toad · 2009-04-15 12:17:54

I don't think the OP's problem has been solved. Moreover, the same problem has hit me

Here my rc.conf daemon stanza:

DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng hal fam @alsa @sshd @network @fglrx @cups @kdm @mysqld @openntpd @netfs @crond @sensors)

If I boot up with no xorg.conf I have neither keyboard nor mouse available. Starting hal manually throws up the following:

toad@deskarch 264\4 ~ > sudo /etc/rc.d/hal start
:: Starting D-BUS system messagebus                                                                                                   [BUSY]Failed to start message bus: Error in file /etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.gnome.GConf.Defaults.conf, line 1, column 0: no element found

                                                                                                                                      [FAIL]
:: Starting Hardware Abstraction Layer

I googled the error message but didn't get anything useful.

@ eFFeeMMe
Do you get a similar message when trying to start hal manually?

jacko · 2009-04-15 12:34:54

toad wrote:

I don't think the OP's problem has been solved. Moreover, the same problem has hit me
Here my rc.conf daemon stanza:
DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng hal fam @alsa @sshd @network @fglrx @cups @kdm @mysqld @openntpd @netfs @crond @sensors)
If I boot up with no xorg.conf I have neither keyboard nor mouse available. Starting hal manually throws up the following:
toad@deskarch 264\4 ~ > sudo /etc/rc.d/hal start
:: Starting D-BUS system messagebus                                                                                                   [BUSY]Failed to start message bus: Error in file /etc/dbus-1/system.d/org.gnome.GConf.Defaults.conf, line 1, column 0: no element found

                                                                                                                                      [FAIL]
:: Starting Hardware Abstraction Layer
I googled the error message but didn't get anything useful.
@ eFFeeMMe
Do you get a similar message when trying to start hal manually?

Fix dbus, check logs, etc. Or try starting dbus manually. As already stated, dbus is started by hal on boot. dbus has to work or hal is dead in the water too. Remember guys, the rc.d scripts are nothing more then text files. You are allowed to open them in a editor of your choosing and view what is actually happening.

BTW, whoever in this thread backgrounded @oss, bad idea if you have other daemons that rely on oss being started before they load. example - MPD

Also, why background syslog? that makes zero sense. Your trying to catch error messages on boot, can't do that if syslog is loaded after messages are being generated. Sort of takes away from the usefulness.

Last edited by jacko (2009-04-15 12:58:22)

toad · 2009-04-15 12:40:09

Quick shooting, jacko. Much appreciated.

Your little nudge was enough for me to move that (empty) file and - bingo, hal is starting!!!

eFFeeMMe · 2009-04-15 19:17:27

Err. I still couldn't get neither the keyboard nor ntfs-3g to work.

I did copy /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-keymap.fdi to /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-keymap.fdi, and it now looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> 
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keymap">
<append key="info.callouts.add" type="strlist">hal-setup-keymap</append>
</match>
<match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keys">
<merge key="input.xkb.rules" type="string">base</merge>

<merge key="input.xkb.model" type="string">keyboard</merge>
<match key="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer:system.kernel.name"
string="Linux">
<merge key="input.xkb.model" type="string">evdev</merge>
</match>

My DAEMONS list looks like this:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng hal @crond @network alsa)

Also: what do these errors mean? It's the last part of the output from pacman -Syu

(78/78) checking for file conflicts [#####################] 100%
error: could not prepare transaction
error: failed to commit transaction (conflicting files)
xorg-server: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdri.so exists in filesystem
xorg-server: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libwfb.so exists in filesystem
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

Thanks again for all the help

Last edited by eFFeeMMe (2009-04-15 19:18:05)

toad · 2009-04-15 19:31:49

re those pacman errors- you can either force the installation or move/delete the offending files

eFFeeMMe · 2009-04-15 19:38:57

Ah! I managed to set ntfs drives up properly So I only have to fix the keyboard issues now.

It was pretty simple, I just had to edit /etc/fstab.
It now looks like this(comments omitted):

none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /media/cd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
/dev/dvd /media/dvd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/fd0 /media/fl auto user,noauto 0 0
UUID=d05d5ebe-5acc-45aa-9257-7132e546dd98 / ext4 defaults 0 1
UUID=e78f105b-aa8b-4122-8f82-7eb7c2398c8d swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/windows ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
/dev/sda3 /mnt/media ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

toad wrote:

re those pacman errors- you can either force the installation or move/delete the offending files

I made a backup, deleted them, and the system update went fine. Thanks

Last edited by eFFeeMMe (2009-04-15 19:51:24)

eFFeeMMe · 2009-04-15 22:19:37

Maybe I can help you help myself better. I think that the keyboard problem might have to do with having only selected the en-US features during the installation of Arch, thinking that they only had to do with language issues and that I'd deal with the keyboard layout later.
As proof of this, gdm's list of avaible languages includes only english; and using the command hal-device|grep -B 15 input.x11.driver returns this:

55: udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_46d_c517_noserial_if0_logicaldev_input'
input.device = '/dev/input/event3' (string)
input.product = 'Logitech USB Receiver' (string)
info.addons.singleton = { 'hald-addon-input' } (string list)
input.originating_device = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_46d_c517_noserial_if0' (string)
input.xkb.rules = 'base' (string)
input.xkb.model = 'evdev' (string)
input.xkb.layout = 'it' (string)
input.xkb.variant = '' (string)
input.x11_driver = 'evdev' (string)

This could mean that HAL works properly, but has no clue what the it layout is and falls back to the en one?
I don't know what to do now though.

Last edited by eFFeeMMe (2009-04-15 22:20:38)

eFFeeMMe · 2009-04-18 17:38:06

Up?

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-10 12:12:15

Can't get HAL to work properly

#2 2009-04-13 16:25:40

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#3 2009-04-13 16:34:03

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#4 2009-04-13 20:06:02

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#5 2009-04-13 23:58:37

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#6 2009-04-14 06:39:17

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#7 2009-04-14 06:47:03

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#8 2009-04-14 12:42:00

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#9 2009-04-14 15:19:53

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#10 2009-04-14 15:29:23

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#11 2009-04-14 16:30:06

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#12 2009-04-14 17:41:33

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#13 2009-04-14 18:35:38

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#14 2009-04-14 20:37:06

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#15 2009-04-15 12:17:54

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#16 2009-04-15 12:34:54

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#17 2009-04-15 12:40:09

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#18 2009-04-15 19:17:27

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#19 2009-04-15 19:31:49

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#20 2009-04-15 19:38:57

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#21 2009-04-15 22:19:37

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

#22 2009-04-18 17:38:06

Re: Can't get HAL to work properly

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