HAL deprecated?

franzrogar · 2010-04-11 21:10:36

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 hope to see that line soon, but atm (waiting also for thunar to deprecate HAL), I think I won't be close... xorg 1.8 carries a huge regression in my system (KMS, DRI2, Intel X3100 GMA GM965/GL960, Arch64) : 3D accel is almost null.

Running glxgears (I know it's not a test but it's quite interesting and reflects what happen with true 3D apps) I got:

6.2.32ARCH, Mesa 7.7.1 : ~ 250fps
6.2.33ARCH, Mesa 7.7.1 (stable): ~ 500fps (Yes, 3D apps "fly" )
6.2.33ARCH, Mesa 7.8.0 ("new"): ~ 45fps... -_- (Yes, I rolled back)

Evrything without xorg.conf file. All other hardware but graphic card works perfectly...

Last edited by franzrogar (2010-04-11 21:10:48)

anrxc · 2010-04-12 00:32:24

At one point all the efforts to get extra keys working on various keyboards went toward HAL. The hal-info package gathered scancodes of various laptops and was distributed as a bunch of XML files, more information here http://hal.freedesktop.org/quirk/quirk- … index.html

So, what happens to this now, how will this be handled, are we going back to useless keyboards or a solution exists? Someone made use of all the hal-info data?

MindTooth · 2010-04-12 10:50:41

bcat wrote:

MindTooth wrote:
Currently have only Thunar installed which require HAL. I hope to see they remove the deps as well soon.
They're working on it. A bit more info here and here.

Thank you Will take a read..

melltuga · 2010-04-13 14:38:31

Why can't I find anything on Device-Kit in the Wiki? I read, that DevKit is slowly becoming the new HAL ...

flamelab · 2010-04-13 15:14:37

There is no Devicekit. We have Udev (a long time now), Udisks and Upower.

melltuga · 2010-04-13 15:22:13

Oh, thanks. So DevKit is just for Ubuntu? Can't find anything on udisks and upower either ...

flamelab · 2010-04-13 15:24:26

melltuga wrote:

Oh, thanks. So DevKit is just for Ubuntu? Can't find anything on udisks and upower either ...

Ubuntu 9.10 uses DevKit.

Ubuntu 10.04 uses Upower/Udisks (like Fedora 13 etc etc).

On Arch now, GNOME depends on Upower and Udisks.

venky80 · 2010-04-13 15:51:26

could anyone explain how KDE is going about this?

flamelab · 2010-04-13 16:25:02

As much I've searched, I can't find info on what's going on Solid Framework. On KDE, they are conservative regarding such changes - and IMHO, they are right. I guess KDE 4.5 may support the U* packages.

nbvcxz · 2010-04-13 19:19:44

Hope we have alternative to u* packages. I like simplicity, but what I can see in linux development last years is going to be more complicated than Windows. We have already tones of daemons (eg. gconf ). Now HAL is going to be replaced with udisks and upower which additionaly require polkit.
It is totally negation of KISS idea and I hope it won't be obligatory in Arch Linux

tomk · 2010-04-13 20:19:08

nbvcxz - upstream devs make those decisions, Arch packages what they release. If KDE goes with udisks/upower/polkit/whatever, then Arch does too.

ngoonee · 2010-04-13 23:01:21

KISS isn't only about 'least number of running instances/installed apps on my machine'. The point of these frameworks, if they do their job, is to make the user's life simpler (without taking away fine-control in most cases) as well as the lives of developers.

kourosh · 2010-04-13 23:35:04

In my opinion this is more to the KISS way of things. HAL was a bit of a mess, it did a lot of what udev already did, so surely using udisks and upower in addition to udev is a simpler way of doing things? Cleaner definitely.

Last edited by kourosh (2010-04-13 23:35:20)

anrxc · 2010-04-13 23:43:05

The point of these frameworks, if they do their job, is to make the user's life simpler

But are they really? That was my problem with Device/PolicyKit, they gave me some "fine grained controls" on my single user laptop.
Like I really needed that model to mount my media, or do whatever, which on top uses XML for configuration.

Last year I wrote the same thing about HAL for input hotplugging, and some random developer said I have no idea what I'm talking about. One year later it's goodbye XML and hello /etc/xorg.conf.d

Last edited by anrxc (2010-04-14 00:21:24)

nbvcxz · 2010-04-14 11:50:40

anrxc pointed the things well. I need to agree with kourosh that hal doubled udev in some regions, so it would be better idea use separetely udisks and upower (however udisks also will double udev in mounting eg. usb drives). But the thing is that they require more and more additional components which are not necessary for most of normal desktop / laptop users

@ngoonee: I need to copy some text from: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way :

Arch Linux defines simplicity as without unnecessary additions, modifications, or complications, and provides a lightweight UNIX-like base structure that allows an individual user to shape the system according to their own needs. In short: an elegant, minimalist approach.

Later you can read about "lightweight base structure built with high programming standards will tend to have lower system resource demands"

But coming back to the point - udisks / upower would be fine without (or as optional) polkit.

Last edited by nbvcxz (2010-04-14 11:51:13)

kourosh · 2010-04-14 14:50:18

nbvcxz wrote:

But coming back to the point - udisks / upower would be fine without (or as optional) polkit.

I'll give you that, I find polkit quite confusing (I should probably read into it more), I'm just hoping that it will just work, and not get in the way...too much to hope for?

ngoonee · 2010-04-14 15:40:37

nbvcxz wrote:

@ngoonee: I need to copy some text from: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way :
Arch Linux defines simplicity as without unnecessary additions, modifications, or complications, and provides a lightweight UNIX-like base structure that allows an individual user to shape the system according to their own needs. In short: an elegant, minimalist approach.
Later you can read about "lightweight base structure built with high programming standards will tend to have lower system resource demands"

Unnecessary additions, modifications, or complications for me can refer to having to do things manually when software can do the job for you. How many of us actually load kernel modules manually (or at least in our own script)?

The user's system caters to the user's needs. In my case, my machine needs to perform certain functions. HAL previously, and udev/upower and cousins now and in future, help it to do that, while not taking away my control (debatable, of course). Hence, they are more KISS than the alternative, which is not to use them.

GogglesGuy · 2010-04-14 19:33:44

nbvcxz wrote:

anrxc pointed the things well. I need to agree with kourosh that hal doubled udev in some regions, so it would be better idea use separetely udisks and upower (however udisks also will double udev in mounting eg. usb drives). But the thing is that they require more and more additional components which are not necessary for most of normal desktop / laptop users

So who does the mounting of usb disks? From looking at the docs, the stack kind of looks like this:

kernel ---> udev ---> udisks ---> desktop apps

where:

kernel sends device notifications
udev receives device notifications and populates /dev/* and other related actions before dev can be used from userspace (firmware loading)
udisks is daemon providing a dbus interface to interact with udev for listing/querying block devices.

some-guy94 · 2010-04-14 20:44:34

DeviceKit was a temporary daemon that was used by DeviceKit-disks and DeviceKit-power, but the dependency was removed and the DeviceKit daemon died. The -power and -disks rely on dbus and udev, which most people have running anyway. DeviceKit-disks and -power were renamed to udisks and upower.

MindTooth · 2010-04-15 09:53:19

Just hope that we soon see more packages depends less on HAL.

Kernel-1 · 2010-04-17 14:02:20

Seems OK for now... X server 1.8 from [xorg18] repo and 'nvidia' package (added IgnoreABI to xrog.conf)

Last edited by Kernel-1 (2010-04-17 14:02:43)

kourosh · 2010-04-17 15:26:42

If anyone's interested in where KDE is with udisks/upower:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DeviceKi … s_SolidHAL

skottish · 2010-04-19 01:35:05

So, are we basically done? Is HAL forever gone?

HAL: I'm afraid. I'm afraid, JGC. JGC, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
JGC: Yes, I'd like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.
HAL: It's called "Daisy."
[sings while slowing down]
HAL: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.

venky80 · 2010-04-19 02:28:51

it is going nowhere unless kde starts using udisks/upower

smakked · 2010-04-19 12:33:21

I am now hal free, had to drop thunar for Pcmanfm2 (pcmanfm-git) it works well

Arch Linux

#51 2010-04-11 21:10:36

Re: HAL deprecated?

#52 2010-04-12 00:32:24

Re: HAL deprecated?

#53 2010-04-12 10:50:41

Re: HAL deprecated?

#54 2010-04-13 14:38:31

Re: HAL deprecated?

#55 2010-04-13 15:14:37

Re: HAL deprecated?

#56 2010-04-13 15:22:13

Re: HAL deprecated?

#57 2010-04-13 15:24:26

Re: HAL deprecated?

#58 2010-04-13 15:51:26

Re: HAL deprecated?

#59 2010-04-13 16:25:02

Re: HAL deprecated?

#60 2010-04-13 19:19:44

Re: HAL deprecated?

#61 2010-04-13 20:19:08

Re: HAL deprecated?

#62 2010-04-13 23:01:21

Re: HAL deprecated?

#63 2010-04-13 23:35:04

Re: HAL deprecated?

#64 2010-04-13 23:43:05

Re: HAL deprecated?

#65 2010-04-14 11:50:40

Re: HAL deprecated?

#66 2010-04-14 14:50:18

Re: HAL deprecated?

#67 2010-04-14 15:40:37

Re: HAL deprecated?

#68 2010-04-14 19:33:44

Re: HAL deprecated?

#69 2010-04-14 20:44:34

Re: HAL deprecated?

#70 2010-04-15 09:53:19

Re: HAL deprecated?

#71 2010-04-17 14:02:20

Re: HAL deprecated?

#72 2010-04-17 15:26:42

Re: HAL deprecated?

#73 2010-04-19 01:35:05

Re: HAL deprecated?

#74 2010-04-19 02:28:51

Re: HAL deprecated?

#75 2010-04-19 12:33:21

Re: HAL deprecated?

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