On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:49:01 -0500 Aaron Griffin wrote:

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 9:01 AM, wrote:

...

Am I happy to hear that. I say this because I'm under the impression that people see only two kinds of linux uses: 1) The traditional server 2) The Desktop

You can, at this time, still do both, but everything in between is getting more and more difficult.

The problem is that the Desktop Environments, GNOME and KDE, in their quest for "integrated desktop experience" push more and more stuff that's really only useful to those DEs deeper and deeper into the system. If you as a user need or want it or not, you get it.

I'd like to provide an example. I'm using an oldish PC and like to pick the apps I use myself, therefor the DE's so-called 'integration' is just unnecessary and rather hindering in the background. I also like configuration. Those are the main reasons I don't use DEs.

Recently I tried to figure out what console-kit is actually good for. Here's an excerpt of the manual that I especially like: Defining the Problem To be written. http://www.freedesktop.org/software/ConsoleKit/doc/ConsoleKit.html#id312255

I figured out that it's only useful for something called 'fast user switching', something I definitely don't need. When trying to remove it I figured that HAL requires it. HAL also requires something called policy-kit, yet another thing I don't know what it does. I recompiled HAL without either, and the system still works as before.

Somewhere during the research I figured that HAL is supposed to be replaced by something called device-kit. HAL isn't really needed says the author in an email, pretty much all the work is done by udev etc.. So I figured, hey, why not just remove HAL, this way the kits won't come back with the next update, and all I use HAL for is mounting usb drives, something that can be done with udev rules as well.

Well, trying to do this I found five apps requiring it, the most surprising: xorg-server

Conclusion: Yeah, great, install xorg for a minimal graphical desktop, what you get is console-kit, for a minor feature in a monster DE. When will "Desktop" people start to see that they are being intrusive? They live in their own small bubble called GNOME or KDE and can't ever imagine anyone not wanting to use this. Sorry for this "slightly" off topic rant, but it annoys me on a regular basis when I see applications depend on gnome or kde, mostly for some stupid reason called 'integration' which really isn't of much use in the specific DE they integrate with and a hindrance to everyone who's not running exactly that DE.

So please, next time you call something integration, think beyond the bubble. In our little Linux world with limited developer time we need real integration, real solutions and still freedom of choice.

Just a personal reply to say that I loved this email. I've been so enraged with this recently. I actually get _angry_ about the xorg hal integration (I have never used hal) - as it means that BY DEFAULT starting xorg fails because it has no keyboard or mouse; you can, thankfully, shut off the hal integration with a Option "AutoAddDevices" "False" in the ServerFlags section of xorg.conf. But still, what the fuck? For all the history of xorg, it has correctly done the basics of detection a ordinary mouse and keyboard. But not any longer. For what reason? I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA!

Thanks for the email. It makes me feel like I'm not alone in my absolute hatred for the direction these things are going.

Thanks for your reply Arvid and Aaron. I'm sure there are a lot more people who feel this way, your replies make me a bit more confident that this situation can be changed. Maybe something can be done on Arch to work against this development? The closer to the core a package is the more careful we have to be with dependencies, I think. It's easy to replace a text editor, impossible to replace xorg, etc.. The other thing I can think of is talking to upstream. Maybe they're not that aware of this issue and think along the lines of: "Everyone has HAL installed anyway, it's no problem if we use it to do xyz." Philipp