From Fedora Project Wiki
(→‎Detailed Description: K3b still requires HAL through Solid. Add kdelibs.)
(→‎Detailed Description: k3b: we are not tracking indirect dependencies on HAL)
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| hplip || TODO || [https://bugs.launchpad.net/hplip/+bug/401091 upstream bug]
| hplip || TODO || [https://bugs.launchpad.net/hplip/+bug/401091 upstream bug]
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|-
| k3b || TODO || K3b requires HAL through KDE's Solid, see kdelibs below
| k3b || done ||
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|-
| kdelibs || TODO || Solid requires HAL in the KDE platform 4.4. According to upstream, a u* backend will be available in 4.5 at the earliest, but more likely 4.6.
| kdelibs || TODO || Solid requires HAL in the KDE platform 4.4. According to upstream, a u* backend will be available in 4.5 at the earliest, but more likely 4.6.

Revision as of 14:43, 22 April 2010


HAL Removal

Summary

HAL is a behemoth, do-it-all, daemon to access hardware. It is now obsoleted by udisks (né DeviceKit-disks) and upower (né DeviceKit-power), as well as libudev for device discovery.

This feature tracks the removal of HAL in the Fedora Desktop spin.

See also:

GNOME upstream tracker

Ubuntu tracker

Debian tracker

Note that gnome-vfs2 still relies on HAL, and is dragged in through libgnomeui. So removing the gnome-vfs2, or libgnomeui dependencies from applications also helps towards that goal.

Owner

  • email: bnocera@redhat.com

Current status

  • Targeted release: Fedora 40
  • Last updated: 2010-03-23
  • Percentage of completion: 80%


Detailed Description

Packages in the desktop spin:

Package name Status Bug reports or discussions
rhythmbox done upstream bug 604186
gstreamer-plugins-good done
gnome-power-manager TODO (removed, but regressed) upstream bug 593933 XRandR brightness settings do not work on all drivers, and don't work with platform brightness settings
cheese done
evolution done
gvfs done upstream bug 586410
gvfs-obexftp done upstream bug 586411 and upstream bug 511671
gnome-vfs2 WONTFIX Applications should be removing their use of gnome-vfs2 and use gvfs instead. Direct gnome-vfs2 rdeps:

dia
firefox
thunderbird
evolution
gnome-python2-applet
gnome-python2-gnome
gnome-python2-gnomevfs
gnome-python2-libegg
im-chooser
inkscape
libgnome
libgnomeui
xine-lib-extras
xulrunner
dasher (DONE upstream)
gnome-pilot (DONE upstream)
planner (DONE upstream)

gnome-pilot TODO
system-setup-keyboard Done Used for keymap selection
gdm done upstream bug 572765, bug 567432
xorg-x11-server-Xorg done
shotwell done
xine-lib done dependency on gnome-vfs2 removed
libmtp done using hal-filesystem
epiphany done Removed obsolete gnome-vfs2-devel dependency
pm-utils TODO (in progress) waiting for upstream
libgpod done
evolution-data-server done
libfprint done using hal-filesystem

Important packages outside the desktop spin:

Package name Status Bug reports or discussions
gimp TODO upstream bug
hplip TODO upstream bug
k3b done
kdelibs TODO Solid requires HAL in the KDE platform 4.4. According to upstream, a u* backend will be available in 4.5 at the earliest, but more likely 4.6.
libvirt done
smolt TODO

Benefit to Fedora

Faster boot-up, and removal of obsoleted technology.

Scope

Loads of applications require HAL itself, or libhal. Applications should not rely on HAL, or libhal being available.

How To Test

Need to test:

  • rpm -e hal or yum erase hal
  • Check that nothing gets removed because it depends on hal
  • Check that applications that access hardware still work as before

User Experience

  • Faster boot-up
  • Possibly faster applications startup when switching from libhal to libgudev for device enumeration

Dependencies

  • See description

Contingency Plan

  • Still ship HAL. If the last thing that depends on hal is gnome-power-manager for the backlight support, we can stop running hal as a service at boot and make it dbus-activated instead.

Documentation

N/A

Release Notes

  • Fedora now does not ship with the HAL daemon, and libhal by default. If a specific application require libhal to function, please file a bug against it to be ported to the new technology.

Comments and Discussion