From Fedora Project Wiki


HAL Removal

Summary

HAL is a behemoth, do-it-all, daemon to access hardware. It is now obsoleted by Package-x-generic-16.pngudisks and Package-x-generic-16.pngupower, as well as libudev for device discovery.

See also:

GNOME upstream tracker

Ubuntu tracker

Debian tracker

Owner

Current status

  • Targeted release: Fedora 16
  • Last updated: 2011-09-27
  • Percentage of completion: 100%

This feature originally proposed the removal of HAL from the Fedora Desktop spin. This goal has already been accomplished and we also completed the removal from the Fedora DVD. In the meantime, Package-x-generic-16.pnghal package maintainer deprecated it for Fedora 16, and later it was also blocked from composes. So this feature is tracking the complete removal of HAL from the distribution.

Detailed Description

To generate the list of packages still depending on hal in rawhide:

$ repoquery --repofrompath=fedora-16-i386,http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/16/i386/os/ --repoid=fedora-16-i386 --qf '%{NAME}' --whatrequires hal hal-devel hal-info hal-libs hal-storage-addon | sort -u

General tasks

Task Status Bug reports or discussions
Block Package-x-generic-16.pnghal from composes done rel-eng ticket 4557
Block Package-x-generic-16.pnghal-info from composes done rel-eng ticket 4724
Remove references to hal in kickstart files done Fedora bug 706505

Packages in the Desktop spin

Package name Status Bug reports or discussions
Package-x-generic-16.pngabrt done abrt-gui subpackage requires gnome-python2-gnomevfs (Fedora bug 652423)
Package-x-generic-16.pngcheese done upstream bug 594966
Package-x-generic-16.pngevolution done
Package-x-generic-16.pngevolution-data-server done
Package-x-generic-16.pnggdm done upstream bug 572765, Fedora bug 567432
Package-x-generic-16.pnggnome-power-manager done upstream bug 593933
Package-x-generic-16.pnggnome-vfs2 done GnomeVFS has been deprecated since 2008, applications should use Package-x-generic-16.pnggvfs instead. Since >80 other packages still depend on gnome-vfs2, its HAL support was disabled (Fedora bug 698638), as was recently done also by Debian (Debian bug 599020), but the goal is to get rid of GnomeVFS too.
Package-x-generic-16.pnggstreamer-plugins-good done
Package-x-generic-16.pnggvfs done upstream bug 586410, upstream bug 586411 and upstream bug 511671
Package-x-generic-16.pnghal-info done Fedora bug 700446
Package-x-generic-16.pnglibfprint done Requires hal-filesystem
Package-x-generic-16.pnglibgpod done
Package-x-generic-16.pnglibmtp done Fedora bug 711422
Package-x-generic-16.pngpm-utils done Fedora bug 636382
Package-x-generic-16.pngrhythmbox done Requires hal-libs (Fedora bug 597202) and gnome-vfs2 (upstream bug 604186)
Package-x-generic-16.pngsetroubleshoot done Requires gnome-python2-gnome (Fedora bug 678543)
Package-x-generic-16.pngsmolt done Fedora bug 634883
Package-x-generic-16.pngsystem-setup-keyboard done
Package-x-generic-16.pngxorg-x11-server done
Package-x-generic-16.pngxulrunner done Requires gnome-vfs2 (upstream bug 494163)

Other packages in the DVD

Package name Status Bug reports or discussions
Package-x-generic-16.pngamarok done Works fine without libmtp-hal on F15/F16 (which is needed on F14 for some reason)
Package-x-generic-16.pngblueman done Fedora bug 561019
Package-x-generic-16.pngeclipse done Requires gnome-vfs2, upstream bug 333759, Fedora bug 667998
Package-x-generic-16.pngexo done Fedora bug 699714
Package-x-generic-16.pnggimp done upstream bug 592364
Package-x-generic-16.pngglade3 done glade3-libgladeui subpackage requires gnome-vfs2
Package-x-generic-16.pnggnome-pilot done upstream bug 593936
Package-x-generic-16.pnghplip done upstream bug 401091
Package-x-generic-16.pngk3b done
Package-x-generic-16.pngkdebase-runtime done
Package-x-generic-16.pngkdelibs done
Package-x-generic-16.pnglibvirt done
Package-x-generic-16.pnglxsession done upstream bug, Fedora bug 688959
Package-x-generic-16.pngpcmanfm done Fedora bug 698652
Package-x-generic-16.pngpcsc-lite done Requires hal-libs, Debian bug 587979
Package-x-generic-16.pngThunar done
Package-x-generic-16.pngthunar-volman done
Package-x-generic-16.pngxine-lib done

Other packages outside the DVD

Package name Status Bug reports or discussions
Package-x-generic-16.pngbeldi done Fedora bug 698656
Package-x-generic-16.pngcamcardsync done Dead upstream, leaf package, deprecated (Fedora bug 698662)
Package-x-generic-16.pngepiphany done
Package-x-generic-16.pngexaile done upstream bug 625209, Fedora bug 698667
Package-x-generic-16.pnggnomad2 done Requires hal-libs and libmtp-hal (Fedora bug 677323)
Package-x-generic-16.pnggnome-device-manager done Dead upstream, leaf package, deprecated (Fedora bug 698685, rel-eng ticket 4845)
Package-x-generic-16.pnggparted done Fedora bug 586377
Package-x-generic-16.pnggxine done
Package-x-generic-16.pnghalevt done Dead upstream, leaf package, deprecated (Fedora bug 700405, rel-eng ticket 4928)
Package-x-generic-16.pngifuse done
Package-x-generic-16.pnglibconcord done
Package-x-generic-16.pnglibrapi done
Package-x-generic-16.pnglibsynce done
Package-x-generic-16.pngmatahari done Fedora bug 677367
Package-x-generic-16.pngnut done Fedora bug 698134
Package-x-generic-16.pngodccm done Deprecated upstream, obsoleted by new package synce-connector, deprecated (Fedora bug 701257, rel-eng ticket 4895)
Package-x-generic-16.pngohm done Dead upstream, leaf package, deprecated (Fedora bug 698964, rel-eng ticket 4871)
Package-x-generic-16.pngolpc-kbdshim done upstream bug 10980, Fedora bug 700866
Package-x-generic-16.pngovirt-server done Dead upstream, deprecated (Fedora bug 700455, rel-eng ticket 4843)
Package-x-generic-16.pngoxine done Fedora bug 700758
Package-x-generic-16.pngpmount done
Package-x-generic-16.pngrazertool done Deprecated (Fedora bug 700756, rel-eng ticket 4766)
Package-x-generic-16.pngsynce-hal done Obsoleted by new package synce-connector, deprecated (rel-eng ticket 4895)
Package-x-generic-16.pngsynce-trayicon done
Package-x-generic-16.pngthunar-vfs done Fedora bug 699682
Package-x-generic-16.pngxchat-gnome done Requires gnome-vfs2
Package-x-generic-16.pngxfburn done upstream bug 5965, Fedora bug 699692
Package-x-generic-16.pngxfce4-cddrive-plugin done Dead upstream, Fedora bug 707783
Package-x-generic-16.pngxfce4-power-manager done
Package-x-generic-16.pngxfce4-volstatus-icon done Deprecated since Fedora 15

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:

  • yum remove hal-filesystem hal-libs
  • 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

  • Undeprecate hal.

Documentation

N/A

Release Notes

HAL, a hardware abstraction layer which has been a deprecated component for several releases, has been completely removed from Fedora. Software components using HAL have moved over to using udisks and upower as well as libudev for device discovery. This results in faster system bootup and faster startup for applications depending on device discovery.

Comments and Discussion