Features/HalRemoval

HAL Removal

Summary

HAL is a behemoth, do-it-all, daemon to access hardware. It is now obsoleted by udisks (né DeviceKit-disks) and upower (né DeviceKit-power), as well as libudev for device discovery.

HAL package maintainer announced a plan to retire it for Fedora 16, and later it was blocked from composes.

This feature tracks the removal of HAL in the Fedora Desktop spin.

See also:

GNOME upstream tracker

Ubuntu tracker

Debian tracker

Owner

• Name: Bastien Nocera
• email: bnocera@redhat.com

• Name: Nicola Soranzo
• email: nsoranzo at fedoraproject.org

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 42
• Last updated: 2011-02-08
• Percentage of completion: 85%

Detailed Description

To generate the list of packages still depending on hal in rawhide:

$ repoquery --repofrompath=fedora-rawhide-i386,http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/rawhide/i386/os/ --repoid=fedora-rawhide-i386 --qf '%{NAME}' --whatrequires hal hal-info hal-libs hal-storage-addon | sort -u

Packages in the Desktop spin

Package name	Status	Bug reports or discussions
abrt-gui	done	Requires gnome-python2-gnomevfs (Fedora bug 652423)
cheese	done	upstream bug 594966
evolution	done
evolution-data-server	done
gdm	done	upstream bug 572765, Fedora bug 567432
gnome-power-manager	done	upstream bug 593933
gnome-vfs2	TODO	GnomeVFS has been deprecated since 2008, applications should use gvfs instead. Packages depending directly on gnome-vfs2: gnome-python2-gnome gnome-python2-gnomevfs libgnome (required by gnome-python2-bonobo, libbonoboui) libgnomeui (required by gnome-python2-gnome) gnome-python is also deprecated for GNOME3, applications should use PyGObject. libbonoboui, libgnome and libgnomeui are also deprecated for GNOME3. at-spi-python is also deprecated, applications should use pyatspi. Since >100 other packages depend on gnome-vfs2, it may be useful to disable its HAL support, as was recently done by Debian (Debian bug 599020), but the goal is to get rid of GnomeVFS too.
gstreamer-plugins-good	done
gvfs	done	upstream bug 586410
gvfs-obexftp	done	upstream bug 586411 and upstream bug 511671
libfprint	done	Still requires hal-filesystem
libgpod	done
libmtp	done	libmtp-hal leaf subpackage still requires hal-info
orca	TODO	Requires gnome-python2-gnome, gnome-python2-bonobo (upstream bug 626254) and at-spi-python (Fedora bug 617642)
pm-utils	done	Fedora bug 636382
rhythmbox	done	Requires hal-libs (Fedora bug 597202) and gnome-vfs2 (upstream bug 604186)
setroubleshoot	done	Requires gnome-python2-gnome (Fedora bug 678543)
shotwell	TODO	Requires gnome-vfs2 (upstream bug 2987, Fedora bug 690563)
smolt	done	Fedora bug 634883
system-setup-keyboard	done
xorg-x11-server-Xorg	done
xulrunner	done	Requires gnome-vfs2 (upstream bug 494163)

Other packages in the DVD

Package name	Status	Bug reports or discussions
amarok	done	Appears to work fine without libmtp-hal on F15/F16 (which is needed on F14 for some reason)
blueman	TODO	Requires hal, Fedora bug 561019, and gnome-python2-gnome
eclipse	done	Requires gnome-vfs2, upstream bug 333759, Fedora bug 667998
exo	done
gimp	TODO	upstream bug 592364
glade3-libgladeui	done	Requires gnome-vfs2
gnome-pilot	done	upstream bug 593936
hplip	done	upstream bug 401091
k3b	done
kdebase-runtime	done
kdelibs	done
libvirt	done
lxsession	done	upstream bug, Fedora bug 688959
pcmanfm	TODO	Requires hal-storage-addon, Debian bug 615212
pcsc-lite	done	Requires hal-libs, Debian bug 587979
planner	TODO	Requires gnome-vfs2 (done in upstream git), libgnome, libgnomeui (upstream bug 589045) and libbonoboui (upstream bug 349304)
system-config-httpd	TODO	Requires gnome-python2-gnome
Thunar	done
thunar-volman	done
thunderbird	TODO	Requires gnome-vfs2
xine-lib	done

Other packages outside the DVD

Package name	Status	Bug reports or discussions
beldi	TODO
camcardsync	TODO
dasher	TODO	Requires gnome-vfs2 (upstream bug 572134, Fedora bug 675740), libgnome, libgnomeui and libbonoboui (upstream bug 571750)
dia	TODO	Requires gnome-vfs2 (upstream bug 613133), libgnome, libgnomeui and libbonoboui
epiphany	done
exaile	TODO	upstream bug 625209
gnomad2	TODO	Requires hal-libs and libmtp-hal (Fedora bug 677323)
gnome-commander	TODO	Requires gnome-vfs2-smb (upstream bug 589069), gnome-python2-gnomevfs, libgnome (upstream bug 589072), libgnomeui and libbonoboui
gnome-device-manager	TODO	Requires hal-libs, libgnome, libgnomeui and libbonoboui. Probably dead upstream
gparted	done	Fedora bug 586377
gxine	done
halevt	TODO
ifuse	done
inkscape	TODO	Requires gnome-vfs2, upstream bug 715215, Fedora bug 653516
libconcord	done
librapi	TODO	Both librapi and python-rapi subpackages
libsynce	TODO
matahari	TODO	Fedora bug 677367
nut	done
odccm	TODO
ohm	TODO	Dead upstream
olpc-kbdshim	TODO
ovirt-server	TODO	ovirt-server-installer subpackage requires hal
oxine	TODO
pmount	TODO
policycoreutils-gui	TODO	Requires gnome-python2-gnome
razertool	TODO
synce-hal	TODO
synce-trayicon	TODO	Requires hal-libs, gnome-vfs2, libgnome, libgnomeui and libbonoboui
thunar-vfs	TODO
xchat-gnome	done	Requires gnome-vfs2
xfburn	TODO	upstream bug 5965
xfce4-cddrive-plugin	TODO
xfce4-power-manager	done
xfce4-volstatus-icon	done	Orphaned since Fedora 15

Benefit to Fedora

Faster boot-up, and removal of obsoleted technology.

Scope

Loads of applications require HAL itself, or libhal. Applications should not rely on HAL, or libhal being available.

How To Test

Need to test:

• yum remove hal-filesystem hal-libs
• Check that nothing gets removed because it depends on hal
• Check that applications that access hardware still work as before

User Experience

• Faster boot-up
• Possibly faster applications startup when switching from libhal to libgudev for device enumeration

Dependencies

• See description

Contingency Plan

• Still ship HAL.

Documentation

N/A

Release Notes

• Fedora now does not ship with the HAL daemon, and libhal by default. If a specific application require libhal to function, please file a bug against it to be ported to the new technology.

Comments and Discussion

• See Talk:Features/HALRemoval