Update on DeviceKit

[Daniel Stone]

On Wed, May 07, 2008 at 08:16:25PM +0200, ext Danny Kukawka wrote:
> On Mittwoch, 7. Mai 2008, Daniel Stone wrote:
> > It's an abstraction layer that already deals with multiple devices and
> > displays both in a sensible way, so HAL would have to strictly follow
> > RandR 1.2 (and only people with DRM modesetting would get that useful
> > mapping) in order to be even remotely useful for configuration.
> 
> But why not provide a simple interface that allow non X 
> tools/applications/daemons to change the brightness without reinventing again 
> the wheel again and again. Nobody force X or X applications to use this 
> interface, but they can. And I mean a simple interface as we have now in HAL, 
> providing access to sysfs (and some old proc interfaces, we may don't need in 
> the future) and some special tools as on Dell machines.

You're going to have to deal with multiple devices, full stop.  The fact
it's 'power management' is an implementation detail that _no-one_ cares
about.  If my mum plugs in a big DVI display to her laptop, she doesn't
care that apps which decide to use HAL for brightness setting will only
change her laptop's backlight because it's a power saving.

Point is, if you're going to do this, then you _must_ do it properly,
and that means multiple GPUs and multiple outputs, and that means giving
people a sensible mapping to how they manage the entire rest of their
displays, which is RandR 1.2.  If you want to do it, far be it from me
to stop you, but just don't do it badly because of a silly little detail
no-one cares about[0] (being that backlights being turned down saves
power).

Cheers,
Daniel

[0]: Don't get me wrong: it's important.  It's just uninteresting, and a
     poor excuse to hide behind.
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