It's not really necessary, no. Take a look at http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg_input_hotplugging Section 6.6 tells you how to turn it off, but I recommend you to read the introduction part to understand what Xorg input hotplugging is about.
Installing is pretty straight forward.
# pacman -S xf86-input-evdev # /etc/rc.d/hal start
This where I got stuck. In the Beginners Guide it said to do these before you start hal: - usr/sbin/groupadd -g 81 dbus ( this didn't work because it said there no such file or directory) - usr/sbin/useradd -c 'System message bus' -u 81 -g dbus -d '/' -s /bin/false dbus Are the two steps just mentioned necessary to do before I run, "/etc/rc.d/hal start"? Will hal startup during boot after running, "/etc/rc.d/hal start", or do I need to something else? In the link you gave me it says, "Add the hal daemon to the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf before anything related to X.Org is started. The hal daemon will load the dbus daemon automatically." It does not tell me how though, so I am a little lost on this issue? Apparently it is best to disable hotplugging (which apparently means that you can change peripherals while the computer is on) and have hal (which replaces hotplugging?) boot up at startup? That is the ultimate goal isn't it? Yes, I am confused a little. Thanks, Preston