HAL, and laptop Fn and hardware keys

[Danny Kukawka]

On Wednesday 21 September 2005 12:09, Richard Hughes wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-09-21 at 11:51 +0200, Danny Kukawka wrote:
[...]
> > I would say: with more than 200.000 downloads of openSUSE 10.0 RC1 (only
> > at ftp.gwdg.de) this is heavy tested.
>
> OOps. Sorry. My mistake. Is it on by default in openSUSE? 

Yes it is.

> How come there are not more backends available?

Ask the developer.

[...]
> > But you can extend the IAL easy with a new module. I think each new
> > module would be appreciated. And why reinvent the wheel?
>
> Well, it would probably be accepted better in other distros, and in the
> existing infrastructure. For me, adding another ButtonPressed event in
> GNOME Power Manager is a two second job (as it already uses libhal), as
> it would be in any userspace application. 

I don't know how easy it is to add a event to GNOME Power Manager but if you 
already use D-BUS (and I think you do) it should be very easy to catch the 
D-BUS event from IAL for keys.

> Convincing the user that they 
> need to install *another* init.d daemon just to poll for a few keys that
> no-one hardly ever uses is a bit of a toughy - on the other hand,
> modifying an existing addon that is sleeping 99.9% of the time, that
> does not contribute significantly to bootup time is an easy win.

If you read the documentation of IAL, this is more than " ... just to poll for 
a few keys ...". With IAL it's possible to emit D-BUS signals for any key you 
want. Not only for some special laptop keys, also e.g. the keys of your  
Logitech diNovo Media Desktop or any other keyboard (this is also a possible 
replacement for e.g. lineak.sourceforge.net).

We follow (as e.g. also with powersave) an other way for special tasks: KISS 
(Keep it small and simple). We think it's more easier to maintain and better 
to handle if you have a special solution for a special task (e.g. keys or 
powersave). In this case you can easier stop unneeded parts and you can 
eliminate/prevent side effects. If you develop a all-in-one solution you get 
IMO at the end the same problems as in windows: a big black hole which is a 
nightmare to handle and maintain.

> Most of the toshiba code (a couple of key functions) can be
> copied/pasted from ial and fnfx, and I'm sure with the first module in
> place, people can quite easily contribute the required data to "get
> their laptop working"

> I don't want to come across as a git, and I'm sure ial is very capable,
> but I think the functionality belongs in HAL.

See above.

Cheers,

Danny