[arch-general] future of xorg-server and hal

[Aaron Griffin]

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Xavier <shiningxc at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 4:40 PM,  <hollunder at gmx.at> wrote:
>>>
>>> Anyway hal is dead :
>>> http://wiki.x.org/wiki/Events/XDC2009/Notes?highlight=%28hal%29|%28udev%29#head-75cccc4e4968dd043dcf2166dff61afd7d0d06c5
>>> But since that functionality is definitely needed, it will have to be
>>> replaced.. somehow.
>>
>>
>> Isn't that somehow going to be device-kit?
>> If so, we won't get rid of dbus.
>>
>
> It looks like devicekit has -disk and -power but not -input. And what
> Xorg would need is the non-existing -input, so it cannot use
> devicekit.
>
> Besides it looks like some xorg devels are a bit annoyed by the big
> mess and endless renaming/overhaul of these projects :  hal ->
> devicekit -power/-disk -> upower/udisk ?
> http://paste.debian.net/52931
> http://cgit.freedesktop.org/DeviceKit
> You might also find more information on devicekit ML.
>
> Anyway, as the xorg wiki above points out, and as Jan mentioned in
> another thread, Xorg will probably just use libudev directly on Linux
> : http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-general/2009-December/009283.html
>
> And some further clarification :
>
> 18:41 < alanc> right now, Xorg uses HAL for two things:
> 1) an OS independent way of finding input devices and getting notified
> of hotplugs,
> 2) configuration data for those devices
> 18:42 < jcristau>
> 1) is going to become os-dependent,
> and 2) should eventually be possible through xorg.conf.d
> 18:42 < alanc> for task #1, HAL will be replaced by OS-dependent code
> - libudev on Linux, libsysevent on Solaris, whatever HAL called on
> BSD/other OS'es for those OS'es

xorg.conf.d sounds neat. Considering how good Xorg is now at
autodetecting things, I imagine one could add small files to change
things like ServerFlags without touching anything else.

Are there any design docs on xorg.conf.d anywhere?