HAL deprecated?

Vortex375 · 2010-03-27 10:20:58

Hi everyone,

I recently read that the HAL daemon was deprecated (it even says so on its wikipedia page now) and that the next release of Ubuntu won't be using HAL at all.

However, right now HAL is needed by various other applications. The X server uses it to detect input devices, KDE 4.4 uses it to detect removable storage devices and to handle power management.

So how is it possible for the Ubuntu devs to simply remove HAL altogether?
Are the new replacements for HAL backwards compatible or would it require to patch the X server and KDE?

Right now, are there any benefits from not using HAL?

dcc24 · 2010-03-27 10:32:06

X.Org 1.8 will be completely independent from HAL. Even now, if you use the GIT version, you can easily build it without HAL using "--enable-udev-config". I don't use KDE, so I have no idea about that.

flamelab · 2010-03-27 10:33:07

HAL is almost fully deprecated by GNOME right now. If this decision was right or wrong, we'll see in the future.

HAL is mostly unmaintained and the development has been stalled - some bugfixes there and there.

As they say on freedesktop.org

HAL is in maintenance mode - no new features are added. All future development focuses on Software/DeviceKit-disks, Software/DeviceKit-power, NetworkManager, PulseAudio, udev, ...

since they are documented, new, fresh for the developers.

Xorg-server 1.8 won't possibly depend on HAL, but instead, it will use Udev for hardware access.

KDE seems to be conservative on such things, but I guess Solid may support Udisks/Upower soon.

Gusar · 2010-03-27 10:41:26

xorg-server as of version 1.8 uses udev directly for input hotplugging, so no HAL needed there anymore. Gnome, as of version 2.28 I think, has moved to udisks (formerly devicekit-disks) and upower (formerly devicekit-power), so no HAL needed there as well. KDE still needs HAL currently and this will remain so for the next version or two.

Other environments... In LXDE, lxsession currently still uses HAL, while PCManFM has a new version in the making which uses udisks, but it does so via gnome-disk-utility, which is ugh. The xfce people plan to write their own udisks interface that doesn't have gnome dependencies.

In short, X and Gnome are hal-free, other environments not yet.

Bralkein · 2010-03-27 10:53:21

In KDE I think these things are dealt with inside the Solid library. Development there seems to be quite active at the moment, so I feel sure that they are addressing this HAL deprecation if they haven't done so already. There is some information on this subject to be found in this recent article. I quote a relevant section:

One important change is that multiple Solid backends can now be loaded at the same time, providing information from different sources in parallel. A first implementation of this change has been done by Kevin Ottens during Tokamak 4. This change allows for more flexibility within Solid, especially for the support of new middleware such as upower, udisk and the like.

damis648 · 2010-03-27 15:28:01

So how would one using GNOME move away from the deprecated HAL and toward the new *kits?

wonder · 2010-03-27 15:37:48

damis648 wrote:

So how would one using GNOME move away from the deprecated HAL and toward the new *kits?

nothing more than keeping your system up to date. you already use *kits if you use gnome because this transition was when gnome 2.28 hit repos.

Last edited by wonder (2010-03-27 15:38:47)

damis648 · 2010-03-27 16:18:15

wonder wrote:

damis648 wrote:
So how would one using GNOME move away from the deprecated HAL and toward the new *kits?
nothing more than keeping your system up to date. you already use *kits if you use gnome because this transition was when gnome 2.28 hit repos.

So does that mean that I can remove HAL from the system daemons?

wonder · 2010-03-27 16:26:40

damis648 wrote:

wonder wrote:
damis648 wrote:
So how would one using GNOME move away from the deprecated HAL and toward the new *kits?
nothing more than keeping your system up to date. you already use *kits if you use gnome because this transition was when gnome 2.28 hit repos.
So does that mean that I can remove HAL from the system daemons?

only you can decide if is the right move since is your system, you know if you rely in xorg autodetection feature or if you use other application that is using hal.

jarryson · 2010-03-27 20:23:23

try xorg-server-udev in AUR

JGC · 2010-03-27 21:41:15

Or wait for xorg-server 1.8 to get released. We might add packages for that to testing as soon as GNOME 2.30 is done.

n0dix · 2010-03-27 22:18:22

JGC wrote:

Or wait for xorg-server 1.8 to get released. We might add packages for that to testing as soon as GNOME 2.30 is done.

So this is for the end of the year (GNOME 2.30)?
When is released xorg-server 1.8?

wonder · 2010-03-27 22:20:20

n0dix wrote:

JGC wrote:
Or wait for xorg-server 1.8 to get released. We might add packages for that to testing as soon as GNOME 2.30 is done.
So this is for the end of the year (GNOME 2.30)?
When is released xorg-server 1.8?

LOL. You know that 2.30 is not gnome 3 no?

gnome 2.30 is due to 31 march

n0dix · 2010-03-27 22:23:26

wonder wrote:

n0dix wrote:
JGC wrote:
Or wait for xorg-server 1.8 to get released. We might add packages for that to testing as soon as GNOME 2.30 is done.
So this is for the end of the year (GNOME 2.30)?
When is released xorg-server 1.8?
LOL. You know that 2.30 is not gnome 3 no?
gnome 2.30 is due to 31 march

ok, but it is not supposed to jump from gnome 2.3 to gnome 3?

wonder · 2010-03-27 22:37:12

n0dix wrote:

wonder wrote:
n0dix wrote:
So this is for the end of the year (GNOME 2.30)?
When is released xorg-server 1.8?
LOL. You know that 2.30 is not gnome 3 no?
gnome 2.30 is due to 31 march
ok, but it is not supposed to jump from gnome 2.3 to gnome 3?

yes. it supposed to jump from 2.3x release to 3 if the gnome developers considers that gnome 3 is ready. note the x from the version as gnome 2.3 is 7 years old

n0dix · 2010-03-27 22:41:06

wonder wrote:

n0dix wrote:
wonder wrote:
LOL. You know that 2.30 is not gnome 3 no?
gnome 2.30 is due to 31 march
ok, but it is not supposed to jump from gnome 2.3 to gnome 3?
yes. it supposed to jump from 2.3x release to 3 if the gnome developers considers that gnome 3 is ready. note the x from the version as gnome 2.3 is 7 years old

Yeah, i read something about: Gnome 3 Plan

gtklocker · 2010-04-02 08:49:28

Since the tarball is published, why don't you try to test a PKGBUILD with new sources, and the changes mentioned above?

Isildur · 2010-04-02 10:31:20

Btw:whats wrong with hal that it needs to be replaced? For me things just seem to become more complicated with multiple new daemons replacing one.

flamelab · 2010-04-02 10:32:55

HAL has not good documentation and it's too complicated for the devs.

The end user won't need to see a difference, they just need a better platform to work on.

novafluxx · 2010-04-06 20:04:33

Ubuntu 10.04 has completely removed HAL. I'm now sure if Kubuntu has or not though.

I'm looking forward to the removal of HAL, as it seems like logical evolution to me. If somethings becoming old, seldom maintained and not documented very well, I'd rather not have it used. DeviceKit has also been deprecated in favor of adding the functionality to udev apparently.

tomk · 2010-04-06 20:22:06

I've just upgraded to xorg 1.8 using JGC's xorg18 repo and that removes my last dependency on hal, as I use already use udev for automounting.

I haven't -R'd it just yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Right now, the "Required By : None" line in pacman -Qi hal is good to see.

novafluxx · 2010-04-06 20:40:16

tomk wrote:

I've just upgraded to xorg 1.8 using JGC's xorg18 repo and that removes my last dependency on hal, as I use already use udev for automounting.
I haven't -R'd it just yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Right now, the "Required By : None" line in pacman -Qi hal is good to see.

I'm interested in doing this myself.

Any advice/tips? I'm doing a clean install of Arch Linux right now in a virtual machine so if I break something theres no problems :-)

.:B:. · 2010-04-06 21:32:34

I think you should use testing when you try JGC's repo.

Profjim · 2010-04-06 21:48:14

.:B:. wrote:

I think you should use testing when you try JGC's repo.

s/should/must/

EDIT: sorry, I'm wrong. I misremembered what the mailing list thread said. Anyway, if you're going to do this you should follow the discussion in arch-general and arch-dev-public.

Last edited by Profjim (2010-04-06 22:11:45)

novafluxx · 2010-04-07 01:27:19

I have decided to just wait till its all stable and stuff ;-)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-03-27 10:20:58

HAL deprecated?

#2 2010-03-27 10:32:06

Re: HAL deprecated?

#3 2010-03-27 10:33:07

Re: HAL deprecated?

#4 2010-03-27 10:41:26

Re: HAL deprecated?

#5 2010-03-27 10:53:21

Re: HAL deprecated?

#6 2010-03-27 15:28:01

Re: HAL deprecated?

#7 2010-03-27 15:37:48

Re: HAL deprecated?

#8 2010-03-27 16:18:15

Re: HAL deprecated?

#9 2010-03-27 16:26:40

Re: HAL deprecated?

#10 2010-03-27 20:23:23

Re: HAL deprecated?

#11 2010-03-27 21:41:15

Re: HAL deprecated?

#12 2010-03-27 22:18:22

Re: HAL deprecated?

#13 2010-03-27 22:20:20

Re: HAL deprecated?

#14 2010-03-27 22:23:26

Re: HAL deprecated?

#15 2010-03-27 22:37:12

Re: HAL deprecated?

#16 2010-03-27 22:41:06

Re: HAL deprecated?

#17 2010-04-02 08:49:28

Re: HAL deprecated?

#18 2010-04-02 10:31:20

Re: HAL deprecated?

#19 2010-04-02 10:32:55

Re: HAL deprecated?

#20 2010-04-06 20:04:33

Re: HAL deprecated?

#21 2010-04-06 20:22:06

Re: HAL deprecated?

#22 2010-04-06 20:40:16

Re: HAL deprecated?

#23 2010-04-06 21:32:34

Re: HAL deprecated?

#24 2010-04-06 21:48:14

Re: HAL deprecated?

#25 2010-04-07 01:27:19

Re: HAL deprecated?

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