xorg 7.4 keyboard localisation (xorg.conf vs hal)

[Sebastien Chassot]

On Sun, 2009-02-01 at 14:10 -0800, Joe Kelsey wrote:
> This seems to have a way to enable HAL to detect a keyboard and export 
> it to X, but what about mice?  My Xorg log tells me that it is ignoring 
> my USB mouse in addition to ignoring my keyboard, so what sort of HAL 
> file do I add to enable it to find my mouse?

You can choose between using HAL config or xorg.conf by doing
what /usr/port/UPDATING suggest:

===================
  20090123:
  AFFECTS: users of x11-servers/xorg-server
  AUTHOR: rnoland at FreeBSD.org

  If you are using an older xorg.conf several config lines are
  no longer needed and will generate warnings when X is started.
  RgbPath will cause X to fail to start, remove it from your config.

  Server 1.5.3 also really wants to configure its input devices
  via hald.  This is causing some issues with moused and
  /dev/sysmouse.  There are a couple of options for how to deal
  with it.

  1. Add Option "AllowEmptyInput" "off" to your ServerLayout section.
     This will cause X to use the configured kbd, mouse, and vmmouse
     sections from your xorg.conf

  2. Don't use moused.  If you want it to work with addon usb mice
     set this in rc.conf:

     moused_enable="NO"
     moused_nondefault_enable="NO"

  I'm working on fixing hald or the mouse driver or both.
===================


But it don't help on HAL support...

> Where in HAL documentation is this information found?  R. Noland seemed 
> to think it was a trivial process to make HAL do keyboards and mice?  In 
> fact it is not trivial but a pain in the ass!  If you intend to inflict 
> broken software on unsuspecting users you had better think through all 
> of the problems and come up with explicit solutions to all of those 
> problems so that everyone has a chance to make their systems work.

You're right. The handbook don't talk about HAL at all and it's quiet
difficult to find doc on web. HAL seems to have huge capability...too
much to begin with...  ;)