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

[Xavier]

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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?
>

Heh, I think one was being written when you wrote your mail :D
Not exactly a design doc but at least that's a start.

And I am very likely the one who triggered that with my stupid questions :)
http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-devel/2009-December/003851.html

And before that, it was mostly discussed on xorg-devel and at XDC.
18:51 < alanc> rnoland: we talked alot about it at XDC and there's
been some mail on xorg-devel - though much
               more mail about xorg.conf.d than udev/config replacement

And I think the patch referred is
http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-devel/2009-November/003710.html