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#1 2011-08-02 21:00:08

bikepunk
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Registered: 2010-01-21
Posts: 24

What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

I found out recently that HAL is deprecated. Browsing the forum it seems that still a few people (like me) don't know about it. I couldn't find any precise information on what packages still depend on Hal (such a page as http://wiki.debian.org/HALRemoval or https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Halsectomy ). So it might be confusing for the people having hal installed to know if they can get rid of it or not.

In the wiki, the LXDE page : https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LXDE still mention that hal is needed. While it seems is not (I'm running LXDE without hal without problem). To get Suspend and Hibernate buttons in the Logout dialog upower works perfectly. The Daemon page should also be updated I think.

As I'm not an expert, I'm asking confirmation before to edit the wiki (see talk pages). And propose to add information about which packages still depend on HAL.

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#2 2011-08-02 21:05:30

wonder
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From: Bucharest, Romania
Registered: 2006-07-05
Posts: 5,941
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Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)


Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

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#3 2011-08-02 22:50:44

sportscliche
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From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: 2010-11-30
Posts: 43

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

Hmmm, when I remove HAL from my LXDE system I get the "Error creating mount point" message when I hotplug into a USB port.  I looked at the dbus wiki page and modified .xinitrc as suggested, but cannot clear the problem.  Can someone point me in the right direction?

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#4 2011-08-03 06:44:14

wonder
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From: Bucharest, Romania
Registered: 2006-07-05
Posts: 5,941
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Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

you hit into a bug in pacman that is fixed in pacman 4.0. mkdir /media as root


Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

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#5 2011-08-03 08:06:13

Modeler
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From: United Kingdom
Registered: 2011-07-28
Posts: 70

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

I have built a couple of LXDE systems over the last few days and have studied a number of the wiki pages in detail. This came as a shock as HAL does seem to do quite a bit. I'll try removing it and see if there's any adverse effects.


Wirth's law: "Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster"

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#6 2011-08-03 08:13:37

Inxsible
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From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

Its been quite a while now that HAL has been deprecated. What rock have you been living under ? tongue

Having said that, deprecated does not mean useless. There might still be an app or two which need it. If you are using such an app, continue to use HAL. But be aware, that since the majority don't use it, you find find help difficult to come by if you were to have problems. So the earlier you switch to alternatives the better.


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There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#7 2011-08-03 08:31:08

swanson
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From: Sweden
Registered: 2011-02-05
Posts: 759

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

Be aware that IF hal is installed some apps will try to use it. If it isn't they will not. I've had this kind of problem with nerolinux 4 and mewer xfburn. With hal installed nerolinux wouldn't see my burner. So only way to know is to uninstall hal completely. If some apps then do complain - replace them!

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#8 2011-08-03 09:42:21

Viper_Scull
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From: London, UK
Registered: 2011-01-15
Posts: 153

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

sportscliche wrote:

Hmmm, when I remove HAL from my LXDE system I get the "Error creating mount point" message when I hotplug into a USB port.  I looked at the dbus wiki page and modified .xinitrc as suggested, but cannot clear the problem.  Can someone point me in the right direction?

You must install udisks to replace hal to mount removable media.

Last edited by Viper_Scull (2011-08-03 09:43:18)


Athlon II X4 620 + Gigabyte 785GPM-UD2H + 4GB DDR3 + SSD OCZ Vertex2 60GB

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#9 2011-08-03 11:00:01

Modeler
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From: United Kingdom
Registered: 2011-07-28
Posts: 70

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

Interesting. It seems you need dbus under DAEMONS in /etc/rc.conf to be able to shut down and reboot from LXDE, even though the desktop environment will start it automatically.

I have lost the suspend and hibernate options altogether though.

bikepunk wrote:

While it seems is not (I'm running LXDE without hal without problem). To get Suspend and Hibernate buttons in the Logout dialog upower works perfectly. The Daemon page should also be updated I think.

Sorry if I missed something but I'd like to know how to get these back without HAL. Any chance you could point me in the right direction please? These are my current DAEMONS:

DAEMONS=(hwclock syslog-ng network netfs crond sshd dbus laptop-mode)

Thanks.

[Edit]I think I've found it:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pm … enbox_menu

Is this the method you used? Seems a bit long-winded is all.

Last edited by Modeler (2011-08-03 11:16:11)


Wirth's law: "Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster"

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#10 2011-08-03 13:16:21

bikepunk
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Registered: 2010-01-21
Posts: 24

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

@ Modeler. Yep, you need dbus started before to start LXDE. Where have you seen that LXDE starts dbus automatically ?

I simply installed upower (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/i686/upower/) ; together with pm-utils manage to get all the buttons (Shutdown, Reboot, Suspend, Hibernate, Logout ) working in the Logout dialog (and with no HAL installed of course).
Your daemon list looks just fine.

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#11 2011-08-03 14:09:40

stqn
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Registered: 2010-03-19
Posts: 1,191
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Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

Easy way to know if one of your installed packages still (optionally) depends on hal:

pacman -Qi | grep -iE "dep.*hal"

In fact, running this with "-Si" instead of "-Qi" returns only one package: synce-odccm.

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#12 2011-08-03 18:25:09

Modeler
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From: United Kingdom
Registered: 2011-07-28
Posts: 70

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

bikepunk wrote:

Where have you seen that LXDE starts dbus automatically ?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dbus says:

Desktop environments will usually start a D-Bus session automatically

If I don't have dbus in my daemons list, it still runs when I'm in LXDE but I don't get the shutdown and reboot options. When I add it and reboot, they appear. Thanks for you help with this by the way.


Wirth's law: "Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster"

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#13 2011-08-03 19:05:59

Gusar
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Registered: 2009-08-25
Posts: 3,605

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

Modeler wrote:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dbus says:

Desktop environments will usually start a D-Bus session automatically

If I don't have dbus in my daemons list, it still runs when I'm in LXDE but I don't get the shutdown and reboot options. When I add it and reboot, they appear. Thanks for you help with this by the way.

You have to know that there are two dbus sessions, a system one and a user one. The user one either gets started by the DE, or you put it in .xinitrc if you don't use a DE. But you need the system one as well, and that one you get by putting dbus in the daemons array in rc.conf.

Last edited by Gusar (2011-08-03 19:06:12)

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#14 2011-08-03 19:57:23

sportscliche
Member
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: 2010-11-30
Posts: 43

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

wonder wrote:

you hit into a bug in pacman that is fixed in pacman 4.0. mkdir /media as root

Thank you wonder, this worked...USB devices are now recognized on hotplug with hal uninstalled.  For the record: after removing hal, the /media directory disappears.  I created a new one as indicated above.  I already had udisks installed, so that wasn't the issue.

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#15 2011-08-04 16:00:08

Lone_Wolf
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From: Netherlands, Europe
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 11,848

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

Gusar wrote:
Modeler wrote:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dbus says:

Desktop environments will usually start a D-Bus session automatically

If I don't have dbus in my daemons list, it still runs when I'm in LXDE but I don't get the shutdown and reboot options. When I add it and reboot, they appear. Thanks for you help with this by the way.

You have to know that there are two dbus sessions, a system one and a user one. The user one either gets started by the DE, or you put it in .xinitrc if you don't use a DE. But you need the system one as well, and that one you get by putting dbus in the daemons array in rc.conf.


The text should be changed , as it is usually NOT the DE that starts the dbus user session .
starting that session is done by the Desktop manager / Login Manager  ( slim, kdm , gdm are examples) .


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


(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

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#16 2011-08-04 17:07:32

TheCycoONE
Member
From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Registered: 2009-12-21
Posts: 31

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

Lone_Wolf wrote:

The text should be changed , as it is usually NOT the DE that starts the dbus user session .
starting that session is done by the Desktop manager / Login Manager  ( slim, kdm , gdm are examples) .

SLiM is an example of a login manager that doesn't start the dbus user session iirc.  You have to use dbus-launch and consolekit to set up your session in the .xinitrc with it.

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#17 2011-08-05 15:13:35

Modeler
Member
From: United Kingdom
Registered: 2011-07-28
Posts: 70

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

TheCycoONE wrote:

SLiM is an example of a login manager that doesn't start the dbus user session iirc.  You have to use dbus-launch and consolekit to set up your session in the .xinitrc with it.

Am I right in understanding that login managers such as GDM and LXDM do not parse the .xinitrc file? That would make sense, as that's where you'd call your login manager from if using startx rather than run level 5 by default in /etc/inittab.

Thanks.


Wirth's law: "Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster"

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#18 2011-08-05 15:27:28

Inxsible
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From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

if you are using startx, you do not call login managers from your .xinitrc. You call your WM/DE.

What's the point in logging in at the CLI, and then calling the login manager ? What, to login again?


Forum Rules

There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#19 2011-08-06 22:17:36

Modeler
Member
From: United Kingdom
Registered: 2011-07-28
Posts: 70

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

Inxsible wrote:

if you are using startx, you do not call login managers from your .xinitrc. You call your WM/DE.

What's the point in logging in at the CLI, and then calling the login manager ? What, to login again?

Of course, you're right. The skeleton file refers to the Window Manager, not the login manager; I apologise. I also apologise to bikepunk for effectively hijacking this thread. I suppose the stuff about dbus was on-topic, but my assumptions about the login process weren't - sorry. I know better now.


Wirth's law: "Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster"

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#20 2011-08-06 22:58:18

alphaniner
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From: Ancapistan
Registered: 2010-07-12
Posts: 2,810

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

According to the official xfce4 page, thunar-volman requires HAL.  But that page hasn't been updated in three years, and HAL isn't a dependency according to pacman (but then, neither is Dbus).


But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
-Lysander Spooner

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#21 2011-08-07 05:02:31

swanson
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2011-02-05
Posts: 759

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

Thunar has undergone a big rewrite the last couple of years and moved from Hal to gio/gvfs.

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#22 2011-08-13 02:58:45

timm
Member
From: Wisconsin
Registered: 2004-02-25
Posts: 417

Re: What still depend on HAL ? (LXDE ?)

I looked at uninstalling hal and got the message that network-ups-tools requires hal.  Looks like I have an older version of nut, though.

Last edited by timm (2011-08-13 03:06:30)

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