[patch] Re: HAL and hotplugging

[Sascha Hlusiak]

Hi,

> Mmm.. Now the option-support is getting somewhere.. While the HAL-support
> in the Xserver makes attaching mice, keyboards, and some of the available
> tablets/touchpad/touchscreens easier I'm not sure it will get all the way.
> The Wacom driver does not have a simple 1:1 mapping between kernel
> device:Xinput device and this is a problem for HAL today afaik, see [1] for
> more info.
The hal code was never intended to replace the xorg.conf but to provide a 
static default so that mice and keyboards just work. While with the patch you 
can provide options to the drivers, the user still can't do anything. For 
devices that don't need much configuration or things that can be changed in 
runtime (like keyboard layout, mouse button mapping), that's fine. 

> Also if there are parameters that should be set that can be individual for
> the logged in user, how are these set when the hw is plugged in/the user on
> the console changes?
Things like keyboard layout and mouse button mapping can be changed during 
runtime. 

> Are there any existing thoughts on how to handle these kinds of devices in
> a reliably way? Or is the work I've done on the XInputHotplugger daemon [2]
> the only work that has, so far, addressed this?
I think a userspace daemon is the way to go. But I think this should be 
integrated into the desktop such as KDE or Gnome. 
Their HAL daemon should recognize a new input device, shows options to 
configure it and adds it to the server via dbus, if the user wants to.

So static fdi files for static devices like mice and keyboards, and a daemon 
for the rest. 

- Sascha