How to migrate the X server?

[Martin Pitt]

Hello Peter,

Peter Hutterer [2009-08-05 16:42 +1000]:
> The main issue I see is with the integration of distribution-shipped code
> and user-configured code. With the current system, we have /usr/share/hal/*
> for distro-code and /etc/hal/* for user-configured code.

Note that udev has the same: distro packages ship stuff in
/lib/udev/rules.d/, and the admin can add/override in
/etc/udev/rules.d/.

> IMO there is nothing wrong with hal/udev being configuration _stores_.

Admittedly they haven't really been meant to be configuration stores,
and I don't think it's a good idea to start considering them as such.

However, in the case of X.org keymaps, they are just used to convert a
distro specific primary configuration (like from
/etc/default/console-setup) to a standard place/format where X.org can
read them. This again is not entirely unlike other properties where
e. g. libgphoto2's camera descriptions are attached onto the camera's
USB device in udev.

> The bad thing is that they are also the configurators, i.e. that the
> configuration became part of HAL rather than the X package.

I prefer to consider it an API to read the configuration; it really
shouldn't be the primary place to store the configuration. It becomes
the primary configuration place for user-configured per-device keymap
layouts, of course (custom udev rules). But that shold be fine for
now.

Martin

-- 
Martin Pitt                        | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)