Pull Request Goes In For X's udev Input Handling

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Pull Request Goes In For X's udev Input Handling

A month ago we reported on news regarding the X.Org plans to move away from HAL considering the FreeDesktop.org Hardware Abstraction Layer project is no longer being developed. Since then patches have emerged to support a xorg.conf.d directory for storing some device-specific options and some new xorg.conf configuration options have emerged for filling in some of the gaps previously covered by HAL.The most recent development in this process to get the X Server no longer using HAL for input hot-plugging and device handling is the pull request submitted this week for the udev input-hotplug branch...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=Nzg1Mg

[AliBaba]

Debian already has it in experimental (or at least in their git-repo) and after converting my hal-files to udev rules everything worked as intended.

I use right handed mouse but touchpad and touchstick with my left hand, so those rules are essential for me.


So eventually I got rid of hal completely (had to recompile gnome-power-manager and sound-juicer though).

[cl333r]

Debian already has it in experimental (or at least in their git-repo) and after converting my hal-files to udev rules everything worked as intended.

I use right handed mouse but touchpad and touchstick with my left hand, so those rules are essential for me.


So eventually I got rid of hal completely (had to recompile gnome-power-manager and sound-juicer though).

I bet you got a shiny new desktop now.

[AliBaba]

I bet you got a shiny new desktop now.

, no, not really...

[Smorg]

So does this mean evdev is going away? I suppose thats fine becuase I never really bothered learning the hal configuration. It looks much more complicated than its worth. (About as bad as udev configuration)

[BhaKi]

HAL works on Linux, BSD and Solaris. Udev, on the other hand, is a Linux-specific thing. If they remove support for HAL, won't that decrease portability in X.Org?
This might be a silly question. But I have no idea about X.Org's internals.

[some-guy]

HAL works on Linux, BSD and Solaris. Udev, on the other hand, is a Linux-specific thing. If they remove support for HAL, won't that decrease portability in X.Org?
This might be a silly question. But I have no idea about X.Org's internals.

DeviceKit/upower-udisks is supposed to replace some of the functionality of HAL, but not all of it because they say it is unnecessary. There will be no DeviceKit-input/uinput because it will pretty much only be used by X anyway, so X has to have it implemented using platform-specific methods.

[AliBaba]

If they remove support for HAL, won't that decrease portability in X.Org?...

As far as I know complete removal is not planned atm. For example Debian enables udev and disables hal only for Linux (you can see that in the debian/rules script).

So does this mean evdev is going away

No, evdev is something completely different. As far as rules are concerned, udev rules are not more complicated than HAL (in my opinion).

It was just that hal did nearly the same thing udev could most of the time (at least in my system).


In case you are interested, here's the udev rule for my synaptics touchpad:

ACTION!="add|change", GOTO="xorg_synaptics_end"
KERNEL!="event*", GOTO="xorg_synaptics_end"
ENV{ID_INPUT_TOUCHPAD}!="1", GOTO="xorg_synaptics_end"

ENV{x11_options.ButtonMapping}="3 2 1 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12"

ENV{x11_options.PalmDetect}="true"

ENV{x11_options.LeftEdge}="75"
ENV{x11_options.TopEdge}="50"
ENV{x11_options.BottomEdge}="700"
ENV{x11_options.RightEdge}="900"
      
ENV{x11_options.MinSpeed}="0.50"
ENV{x11_options.MaxSpeed}="1.3"
ENV{x11_options.AccelFactor}="0.025"
ENV{x11_options.TrackstickSpeed}="80"
ENV{x11_options.MaxTapTime}="300"
ENV{x11_options.MaxTapMove}="180"
ENV{x11_options.MaxDoubleTapTime}="200"
ENV{x11_options.SingleTapTimeout}="180"
ENV{x11_options.FastTaps}="0"
      
ENV{x11_options.VertScrollDelta}="15"
ENV{x11_options.UpDownScrolling}="0"
ENV{x11_options.LeftRightScrolling}="0"
ENV{x11_options.CircularScrolling}="1"
ENV{x11_options.CircScrollDelta}="0.2"

ENV{x11_options.TapButton1}="0"
ENV{x11_options.TapButton2}="0"
ENV{x11_options.TapButton3}="0"
ENV{x11_options.RTCornerButton}="0"
ENV{x11_options.RBCornerButton}="0"
ENV{x11_options.LTCornerButton}="0"
ENV{x11_options.LBCornerButton}="0"

LABEL="xorg_synaptics_end"

Not better or worse than HAL I think.

[Ant P.]

In case you are interested, here's the udev rule for my synaptics touchpad:
[...]
Not better or worse than HAL I think.

It's still ugly compared to xorg.conf - in fact it looks almost like a bad BASIC dialect - but it's still a sight for sore eyes after having to hand-edit HAL's xml freak show.

[leeyee]

Actually I agree with somebody I saw on a forum saying, that is there is no need to compare HAL configuration method with udev's. Rather, it all depends on the documentation. It is obvious that at present both of them lack detailed documents on how to write configuration files.

Apart from that, "Not better or worse than HAL" just as AliBaba said.