Alan Mackenzie wrote: > Hi, Gentoo! > > I've just got a sparkling new installation of Gentoo on my new PC. It > only took me ~5 hours, mainly because I'd already configured the kernel > in a trial run. :-) > > However, I'm now trying to get X up and running. "The X Server > Configuration HOWTO", section 3. "Configuring Xorg" says: > > "Hal comes with many premade device rules, also called policies. > These policy files are available in /usr/....../policy. Just find a > few that suit your needs most closely and copy them to /etc/...." > > "For example, to get a basic working keyboard/mouse combination, you > could copy the following files... > /usr/.........../10-input-policy.fdi > /usr/.........../10-x11-input.fdi" > > Am I the only person that finds this semantic gibberish? Is there > any explanation somewhere of what a "policy" aka "device rule" is? What > is the semantic significance of a "device rule"? What does it mean, to > "rule a device", or what sort of restrictions are being placed on this > device? > > Given that one might desire a "basic working keyboard/mouse > combination", what is the chain of reasoning that ends up selecting the > file called "10-input-policy.fdi" from all the other ones? > > This file is an inpenetrable stanza of uncommented XML. Are its verbs > documented somewhere? What do "<match ...>" and "<append ....>" mean, > for example? > > Can this new-style fragmented XML configuration do anything that a good > old-fashioned, human-readable and compact xorg.conf can't? If so, what? > What am I missing here? > > Please, somebody, tell me all this HAL stuff is straightforwardly > explained in an easily accessible Gentoo document, so that I can hang my > head in shame and apologise for the noise! ;-) >
First, give xorg a chance to figure it out by itself. Most stuff works
here without any HAL tinkering:
$ ls -l /etc/hal/fdi/policy/
total 0
$
Maybe the documentation is a bit too much here, it should probably say
that you should start working with the HAL policies when you notice that
some things are not working right (and when that happens do something
like echo 'keyboard-type missing-feature HAL example' > google)
--
Regards,
Tom
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