Hi,

having had some problems with recent xorg version my question is
what are the benefits (if any) of building packages with the 'hal'
use flag (i.e. adding 'hal' to US='...' in /etc/make.conf)

Many thanks for your sharing your experience,
Helmut.

--
Helmut Jarausch

Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik
RWTH - Aachen University
D 52056 Aachen, Germany

http://www.ometer.com/hardware.html

On Wednesday 04 February 2009 09:39:15 Helmut Jarausch wrote:
> Hi,
>
> having had some problems with recent xorg version my question is
> what are the benefits (if any) of building packages with the 'hal'
> use flag (i.e. adding 'hal' to US='...' in /etc/make.conf)
>
> Many thanks for your sharing your experience,
> Helmut.

There's no benefit as such. hal is a crock of shit that never worked right as
the designer intended, and he said so publicly on his blog. He has a plan to
replace it with something else that might work. It's similar to devfs which
led to udev to replace it.

Meanwhile, trying to run KDE or Gnome on a box without hal is becoming more
and more painful with each update. Even xorg is getting in on the hal game
and using hal to auto-configure input devices.

Unless you know of a compelling need to remove it, chances are your life will
be some much easier if you just add hal to USE and be done with it.


--
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Helmut Jarausch wrote:

Hi,

having had some problems with recent xorg version my question is
what are the benefits (if any) of building packages with the 'hal'
use flag (i.e. adding 'hal' to US='...' in /etc/make.conf)


The benefit for me is that I plug my USB flash stick in my PC and it
pops up in my desktop without me needing to enter voodoo console
commands to mount it.

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 6:44 AM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> The benefit for me is that I plug my USB flash stick in my PC and it pops up
> in my desktop without me needing to enter voodoo console commands to mount
> it.

+1

That and... this is my xorg.conf :

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Default Device"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
DefaultDepth 24
EndSection


Good luck in having that minimalist xorg.conf without hal.

Helmut Jarausch <jarausch <at> igpm.rwth-aachen.de> writes:


> having had some problems with recent xorg version my question is
> what are the benefits (if any) of building packages with the 'hal'
> use flag (i.e. adding 'hal' to US='...' in /etc/make.conf)


This link is short and reasonable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_(software)


Hardware Abstraction Layer is a buzz term that means
many different things to many different hardware
designers who need software to make their designs
complete.


hth,

James

Um, you are using the HAL weather you want to or not, it's not really an option!

The HARDWARE ABSTRACTION LAYER with respect to good ol linux happens
to be your kernel and it's drivers.

The bare metal registers within which all those bits are moved is
called the hardware; all those configuration files and source you
compile is considered the software, anything that creates the
transparency between the two is refereed to as the HAL (In windows 98
it was a single DLL file), in Linux it's the source code and binaries
of the kernel and drivers, all modern computers regardless of low
level arch have a HAL.

Regards,
Hazen.

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:17 AM, James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> Helmut Jarausch <jarausch <at> igpm.rwth-aachen.de> writes:
>
>
>> having had some problems with recent xorg version my question is
>> what are the benefits (if any) of building packages with the 'hal'
>> use flag (i.e. adding 'hal' to US='...' in /etc/make.conf)
>
>
> This link is short and reasonable.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_(software)
>
>
> Hardware Abstraction Layer is a buzz term that means
> many different things to many different hardware
> designers who need software to make their designs
> complete.
>
>
> hth,
>
> James
>
>
>
>
>
>



--
Hazen Valliant-Saunders
IT/IS Consultant
(613) 355-5977

Please don't top post on this list. It's considered rude.

You are talking about HAL, an abstract concept.
The OP is talking about hal, a definite package - sys-apps/hal. Recent X.org
uses it to autoconfigure input devices on startup


On Wednesday 04 February 2009 18:34:28 Hazen Valliant-Saunders wrote:
> Um, you are using the HAL weather you want to or not, it's not really an
> option!
>
> The HARDWARE ABSTRACTION LAYER with respect to good ol linux happens
> to be your kernel and it's drivers.
>
> The bare metal registers within which all those bits are moved is
> called the hardware; all those configuration files and source you
> compile is considered the software, anything that creates the
> transparency between the two is refereed to as the HAL (In windows 98
> it was a single DLL file), in Linux it's the source code and binaries
> of the kernel and drivers, all modern computers regardless of low
> level arch have a HAL.
>
> Regards,
> Hazen.
>
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:17 AM, James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> > Helmut Jarausch <jarausch <at> igpm.rwth-aachen.de> writes:
> >> having had some problems with recent xorg version my question is
> >> what are the benefits (if any) of building packages with the 'hal'
> >> use flag (i.e. adding 'hal' to US='...' in /etc/make.conf)
> >
> > This link is short and reasonable.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_(software)
> >
> >
> > Hardware Abstraction Layer is a buzz term that means
> > many different things to many different hardware
> > designers who need software to make their designs
> > complete.
> >
> >
> > hth,
> >
> > James



--
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 3:29 AM, Norberto Bensa <nbensa@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 6:44 AM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
>> The benefit for me is that I plug my USB flash stick in my PC and it pops up
>> in my desktop without me needing to enter voodoo console commands to mount
>> it.
>
> +1
>
> That and... this is my xorg.conf :
>
> Section "Module"
> Load "glx"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Device"
> Identifier "Default Device"
> Driver "nvidia"
> Option "NoLogo"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Screen"
> Identifier "Default Screen"
> DefaultDepth 24
> EndSection
>
>
> Good luck in having that minimalist xorg.conf without hal.
>
>

Almost the same as mine, except I still have lots of font stuff in my
xorg.conf -- do those go somewhere else? or are they unneeded in
xorg.conf at all these days?

On 04/02/09 Alan McKinnon said:

> Meanwhile, trying to run KDE or Gnome on a box without hal is becoming more
> and more painful with each update. Even xorg is getting in on the hal game
> and using hal to auto-configure input devices.

That explains why even on Ubuntu I shut off dbus and hal, and run fluxbox.

In Gentoo I'm using XFCE4 right now without hal. I can mount my own drives.

Mike
--
Michael P. Soulier <msoulier@digitaltorque.ca>
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a
touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."
--Albert Einstein