Arch Linux

TheGrudge

Member

Registered: 2006-06-15

Posts: 206

Website

D-Bus, HAL, AVAHI?

Hi,

I installed kdebase and some other stuff and when I take a look at /etc/rc.d/, there are many services I never had heard of.

Do I need to start HAL, AVAHI and DBUS?? HAL for example is used by kdebase and k3b, but both packages work perfect without HAL started.

I thought UDEV scans for hardware so what does HAL do?

Here is a list of all services I could run (/etc/rc.d/):

./adsl
./alsa
./autofs
./avahi-daemon
./avahi-dnsconfd
./crond
./cups
./dbus
./esd
./fam
./hal
./heimdal-kdc
./hwd
./jack-audio-connection-kit
./kadmind
./kdm
./kpasswd
./lisa
./netfs
./network
./nscd
./portmap
./powernowd
./ppp
./rsyncd
./saslauthd
./slapd
./slpd
./sshd
./syslog-ng
./wlan

do I need the "bold" services, I never heard of them before...
What is wlan for? I have set up my wlan devices in rc.conf and /etc/conf.d/wireless and it works...

Here are the daemons I start at system boot:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng !hotplug !pcmcia network !netfs crond powernowd autofs alsa kdm

CUPS will be started manually because I don't print so often and it takes quite some time to start up, so my boot time is faster without cups...

Do I need to activate some of these services?
Is HAL important?

---

digiKam developer - www.digikam.org

pressh

Developer/TU

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2005-08-14

Posts: 1,719

Re: D-Bus, HAL, AVAHI?

Dbus/Hal Stuff:
Please add 'dbus' 'hal' to rc.conf daemon's list
for full media:/ kioslave experience.

avahi is needed for network services available on your network (if any)

fam is only needed if you need to monitor remote files.

hwd is for hardware detection on boot up, which is done by udev so not needed anymore

lisa scans for network file systems

portmap is needed by fam

heimdal: http://www.pdc.kth.se/heimdal/

for the others I did not mention, feel free to google

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: D-Bus, HAL, AVAHI?

Note that FAM is only needed if you want to have file alteration monitoring for remote filesystems, otherwise you can leave it off and KDE will default to using inotify for local filesystems.

TheGrudge

Member

Registered: 2006-06-15

Posts: 206

Website

Re: D-Bus, HAL, AVAHI?

OK I turned off DBUS and HAL again, I don't need it (I guess).
I have autofs running and HAL+DBUS messes my autofs up.

When I plug in my USB-HDD, KDE shows a dialog like in windows asking me what to do with this new hardware, this is terrible. Also autofs isn't able to unmount me HDD because KDE or some other process is still using the hardware.

The light of the HDD is flashing like it is reading files all the time, I don't like it.
I don't think I will have any disadvantage if I don't use HAL+DBUS, or do you have examples were it is     necessary ?

---

digiKam developer - www.digikam.org

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 13,074

Re: D-Bus, HAL, AVAHI?

KDE also gives an option to do nothing when such a device is plugged-in, and you can make that permanent in the same window ....

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

TheGrudge

Member

Registered: 2006-06-15

Posts: 206

Website

Re: D-Bus, HAL, AVAHI?

I tried that but still my HDD couldn't be unmounted... so some process (maybe dbus?) used the hardware... for me it seems better to turn HAL+DBUS off, everything works fine for me so I don't think I miss something...

---

digiKam developer - www.digikam.org

Kopsis

Member

Registered: 2006-01-31

Posts: 15

Re: D-Bus, HAL, AVAHI?

DBUS is a message passing inter-process communication system. It's used primarily by GNOME applications, though some system services (such as HAL) also take advantage of it. In KDE, qcop provides a conceptually similar mechanism to KDE apps.

HAL is a hardware monitoring and querying service. It doesn't really interact with the hardware, it just collects information discovered by the kernel and services like udev. Its aim is to make hardware device information available to user applications in a more standard, easy to digest manner. Like DBUS, HAL is more closely tied to GNOME than KDE so you'll likely not miss it.

Note that HAL requires DBUS so if you ever decide you want HAL, you'll need to bring back DBUS as well.