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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.
See also:
Owner
- Name: Nicola Soranzo
- Email: nsoranzo at fedoraproject.org
- Original Feature author: Bastien Nocera
- Email: bnocera@redhat.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 16
- Last updated: 2011-08-21
- Percentage of completion: 97%
This feature originally proposed the removal of HAL from the Fedora Desktop spin. This goal has already been accomplished and we also completed the removal from the Fedora DVD. In the meantime, hal package maintainer deprecated it for Fedora 16, and later it was also blocked from composes. So this feature is tracking the complete removal of HAL from the distribution.
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-devel hal-info hal-libs hal-storage-addon | sort -u
General tasks
| Task | Status | Bug reports or discussions |
|---|---|---|
Block hal from composes |
done | |
Block hal-info from composes |
done | |
| Remove references to hal in kickstart files | done |
Packages in the Desktop spin
| Package name | Status | Bug reports or discussions |
|---|---|---|
| abrt-gui | done | gnome-python2-gnomevfs |
| cheese | done | |
| evolution | done | |
| evolution-data-server | done | |
| gdm | done | |
| gnome-power-manager | done | |
| gnome-vfs2 | done | GnomeVFS has been deprecated since 2008, applications should use gvfs instead. Since >100 other packages depend on gnome-vfs2, its HAL support was disabled ( |
| gstreamer-plugins-good | done | |
| gvfs | done | |
| gvfs-obexftp | done | |
| hal-info | done | |
| libfprint | done | hal-filesystem |
| libgpod | done | |
| libmtp | done | |
| pm-utils | done | |
| rhythmbox | done | hal-libsgnome-vfs2 |
| setroubleshoot | done | gnome-python2-gnome |
| smolt | done | |
| system-setup-keyboard | done | |
| xorg-x11-server-Xorg | done | |
| xulrunner | done | gnome-vfs2 |
Other packages in the DVD
| Package name | Status | Bug reports or discussions |
|---|---|---|
| amarok | done | Works fine without libmtp-hal on F15/F16 (which is needed on F14 for some reason)
|
| blueman | done | Fedora bug 561019 |
| eclipse | done | gnome-vfs2 |
| exo | done | |
| gimp | done | |
| glade3-libgladeui | done | gnome-vfs2 |
| gnome-pilot | done | |
| hplip | done | upstream bug 401091 |
| k3b | done | |
| kdebase-runtime | done | |
| kdelibs | done | |
| libvirt | done | |
| lxsession | done | |
| pcmanfm | done | |
| pcsc-lite | done | hal-libs |
| Thunar | done | |
| thunar-volman | done | |
| xine-lib | done |
Other packages outside the DVD
| Package name | Status | Bug reports or discussions |
|---|---|---|
| beldi | done | |
| camcardsync | done | Dead upstream, leaf package, deprecated ( |
| epiphany | done | |
| exaile | TODO | Leaf package (upstream bug 625209, Fedora bug 698667) |
| gnomad2 | done | hal-libs and libmtp-hal |
| gnome-device-manager | done | Dead upstream, leaf package, deprecated ( |
| gparted | done | |
| gxine | done | |
| halevt | TODO | Dead upstream, leaf package (Fedora bug 700405), FTBFS |
| ifuse | done | |
| libconcord | done | |
| librapi | done | |
| libsynce | done | |
| matahari | done | |
| nut | done | |
| odccm | TODO | Deprecated upstream, obsoleted by new package synce-connector, deprecated (Fedora bug 701257)
|
| ohm | done | Dead upstream, leaf package, deprecated ( |
| olpc-kbdshim | done | |
| ovirt-server | done | Dead upstream, deprecated ( |
| oxine | done | |
| pmount | done | |
| razertool | done | Deprecated ( |
| synce-hal | TODO | Obsoleted by new package synce-connector, deprecated
|
| synce-trayicon | done | |
| thunar-vfs | done | |
| xchat-gnome | done | gnome-vfs2 |
| xfburn | done | |
| xfce4-cddrive-plugin | done | Dead upstream, |
| xfce4-power-manager | done | |
| xfce4-volstatus-icon | done | Deprecated 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
- Undeprecate 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.