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-   -   hal - thoughts? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/hal-thoughts-746185/)

easuter 08-10-2009 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dive (Post 3637274)
I think though that something like vl-hot would eventually become popular since it's non-polling and would be great for saving battery power on laptops. http://developer.berlios.de/projects/vl-hot/

Yep, I use vl-hot on my laptop and desktop. Since udev already provides notification when a "hot-pluggable" drive is connected, HAL really isnt necessary.
Even though vl-hot is made for VectorLinux (a Slackware derivative), its pretty straight forward to install it on Slackware.

It would be cool if DVD drives provided a signal for when the tray is opened or closed, then there would be no need to poll the drives all the time...

rkelsen 08-11-2009 07:29 PM

Whoah! Is it 2006 again?

HAL has been working fine for me since mid 2007, when it was first included in Slackware.

People need to accept it and move on. Like everything else in Slackware, you can choose to not install it if you don't like it.

GrapefruiTgirl 08-11-2009 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rkelsen (Post 3639865)
Whoah! Is it 2006 again?

HAL has been working fine for me since mid 2007, when it was first included in Slackware.

People need to accept it and move on. Like everything else in Slackware, you can choose to not install it if you don't like it.

Umm, not if you want X to work ;) as it *depends* on hal libs.

One does not have to *use* it, but:

1-- killing/stopping hald before starting x (init 3 > init 4 for example) causes mouse movements to kill & restart X at the login screen
2-- If HAL is NOT installed, X won't work.
3-- One *can* stop hald AFTER logging into X, but I suppose (maybe, haven't tried it) if you log out, you're back at --1

At least, these have proven to be the case on my -current64 install.

Sasha

Lufbery 08-12-2009 08:35 AM

Always in motion, the future is. My sense with Slackware is that HAL and Udev were included when they were stable and useful. I personally like the auto-mounting feature. It wasn't a big deal to mount devices manually in Slackware 11, but not having to do so now is easier.

I really, really wish that it would work in the console. I couldn't get Ivman or Pmount to work in Slackware 12.2, and I haven't taken the time to define my devices in the fstab and create udev rules for them. This isn't a huge deal, but it's a bit of a pain.

Policykit, devicekit, what's next? As with other things in the past, my hope is that the Slackware team will move to the next big thing when it's stable and mostly bug-free. :D

Regards,

rvdboom 08-12-2009 10:11 AM

Well, as far I am concerned, I'm perfectly happy with hal/udev (and KDE for what it's worth, one must not have worked on Windows for a long time to consider KDE is anything alike or "copied"). It has been working for me very well with the KDE4 series, and I certainly wouldn't want to have to open an Xterm just to mount a DVD or a USB key anymore.
For me, it just works for what I expect from it and it doesn't get in the way for other things, which means I find them working very well.
And yes, I like to be able to set up udev to create the /dev/wacom link automatically for my wacom tablet, something devfs couldn't do. That's much more confortable than having to check which input event device has been chosen this time and write the proper config in xorg.conf before restarting X.

allend 08-13-2009 02:36 AM

Quote:

Whoah! Is it 2006 again?
Hardly! In 2006 it was all "When is Slackware going to catch up and include HAL?"

Overall, I like HAL. The automounting is a great convenience for handling pluggable devices. Yes, I had problems with the XML format of the policy files. I needed to build an extensive custom policy file to suit the ALPS touchpad in my laptop, but now it is rock solid. (Well, except when the file was overwritten in the last round of updates!).

astrogeek 08-13-2009 02:46 AM

HAHA! Thanks Brian!
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by brianL (Post 3637644)
"Give...me..your...answer...dooo
ooo
ooo..."

I will repeat that... with cadence... and melody... the next time I disable HAL...

bloodsugar 08-13-2009 10:14 AM

I can see why Hal would be useful in some situations, for librarys and other institutions, where non-computer people just need to get their work done.

but personally I get the UUID of whatever device it is im trying to access, create a mount point for it in /mnt, and put that info in the fstab.

then I write a small mount script (which mounts, opens the file manager, and once the filemanager has been closed, unmounts the device). finally make a menu entry on my desktop for it.

Hopefully this way of doing it will last forever.

If Hal got replaced, I'd have to think about something else, and Im far too lazy to keep doing that. also I think I've got a fear of complexity.

dive 08-13-2009 11:50 AM

I use pcmanfm in fluxbox. Plugin, open pcmanfm, device is in left pane.

rworkman 08-13-2009 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allend (Post 3641505)
I needed to build an extensive custom policy file to suit the ALPS touchpad in my laptop, but now it is rock solid. (Well, except when the file was overwritten in the last round of updates!).

Copy the file to the relevant directory in /etc/hal/fdi and then edit the copy.

rworkman 08-13-2009 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrapefruiTgirl (Post 3639929)
Umm, not if you want X to work ;) as it *depends* on hal libs.

One does not have to *use* it, but:

1-- killing/stopping hald before starting x (init 3 > init 4 for example) causes mouse movements to kill & restart X at the login screen
2-- If HAL is NOT installed, X won't work.
3-- One *can* stop hald AFTER logging into X, but I suppose (maybe, haven't tried it) if you log out, you're back at --1

At least, these have proven to be the case on my -current64 install.

See CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT in the tree. The information about disabling input hotplugging is relatively new to that file -- we had to make sure all of the relevant bits were mentioned and fixed in the tree first.

GrapefruiTgirl 08-13-2009 01:08 PM

Excellent, thanks Robby, will do!
Sasha

Yep, there's new stuff in there..

I had been missing 1/3 of the server-flags options for no-HAL. Unless there's still weirdness after my next reboot, I'll assume that this missing option was the culprit.

allend 08-13-2009 06:22 PM

Quote:

Copy the file to the relevant directory in /etc/hal/fdi and then edit the copy.
So, customised scripts should be kept in /etc/hal/fdi. Thanks for the tip, Robby.

Su-Shee 08-14-2009 11:48 AM

Either I'm too stupid for HAL or I hate it or both.

Just installed upcoming 13 and with a german notebook keyboard I'm back in 1995, functionwise. ;)

I'll give it a try after reading up some stuff and if I don't have it up and running within this evening, HAL goes.

And the configfiles - I'm sorry, when exactly came "easy to use", "readable" and "pretty much self-explanetory" out of style?

Up until now: Annoying through and through.

Nylex 08-31-2009 09:38 AM

From another thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrapefruiTgirl (Post 3663995)
Hi Nylex,

Not sure what you're intention is re: disabling HAL, but I'm having little success with that :/

I AM using my old xorg.conf, as I always have, and that's fine & dandy; I also have in the xorg.conf the three 'magic lines' disabling HAL from my input devices (see ChangeLog for those lines);

I really just want no automounting and to be able to add devices to my fstab as I used to. I've also added the relevant lines to the ServerFlags section in xorg.conf.

Quote:

Disabling HAL completely, such as during boot before X starts (like chmodding rc.hald to non-executable, or issuing `rc.hald stop`) causes problems. Specifically, X will still start, but all my VTs are dead, so things like CTRL-ALT-F2 takes me to VT2 with no display (typing in the dark).
Quote:

And removing the 3 magic lines from xorg.conf, makes any mouse movement cause X/KDM to restart (so can't use mouse).
I had the same issues. If I can just leave HAL how it is and still be able to mount devices manually and add them to fstab, then it won't bother me.

Thanks!


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