Hal and Xorg output devices

[Jon Smirl]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 13:46:30 -0500, David Nusinow
<david_nusinow at verizon.net> wrote:
> The architecture you described earlier, with a separate client program, matches
> the XInput hotplug proposal pretty well. I took a look at the patches to
> implement this, and it's the external client that would manage such things, so
> the external client daemon could use Hal if it wants (which I think is probably
> a good idea) to get the information, and then tell the X server what to do. I'm
> not sure whether the X server should give commands back to alter these
> settings, but I don't see why it couldn't be done, and let the client daemon
> manage things like putting mode setting at the kernel level properly for that
> OS.

On goal is to remove the need for the X server to run as root. 
Another is that the X server is not the only client of mode setting. 
In this model you would not use xconfig to pass custom mode strings
into the kernel. You can use custom mode strings to burn out older
CRTs. To stop this you need to be root to add the custom mode string
to /etc/modes. The X server should just work with the mode names it
find in /sys/class/graphics/fbX/modes. HAL can sit in the middle if it
wants to.

Also there is no mode setting daemon. The app only runs on a monitor
change and then exits. A hotplug event (like a monitor change) will
restart it.

-- 
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl at gmail.com