New user - small file server questions and quick GUI question

[Chuck Robey]

Adam Vande More wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Kaya Saman <kayasaman at optiplex-networks.com
>> wrote:
> 
>> Hi guys,

>> I attempted an install of 7.2 stable on my laptop and subsequently
>> installed X11also. Now I didn't have any Xorg.conf file but each time I
>> tried to start X from the CLI using the normal startx command (read the
>> documentation through fully beforehand) but I didn't manage to get the mouse
>> or keyboard to even work let alone starting the Gnome2 interface.

> Running with no xorg.conf is fine, but you need to make sure dbus and hal
> are started at boot.  Follow the handbook for best results.
> 
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/x-config.html

I don't know if I'd be too happy to agree on that ... while the answer IS
correctfrom a narrow point of view, the documentation on both dbus and hal is
very, VERY thin on the ground (and what exists is for Linux only), so if the
setup programmed into the port isn't right for your particular FreeBSD machine,
you can pretty much forget about getting enough info to fix things.  Realize
that both hal and dbus were written for Linux (not a particularly portable
thing), and it was only because of FreeBSD porters that it works at all under
FreeBSD, so the docs that come with them understand Linux only.  You can't even
find out how to fix the config files for FreeBSD.  Trying to fix even the most
minor problem is really climbing mountains.  Much, much easier to fix up an
xorg.conf, which is not only well documented, but has tools to generate you a
good local setup for your particular machine.

If dbus/hal happen to work for you right out of the FreeBSD port, well, that's
great, but if you need to adapt things for use outside of Linux, good luck, fella.

The folks who wrote our FreeBSD dbus and hal implementations did a good job of
translating things which are VERY Linux-centric to FreeBSD, but it's still only
really good for a default FreeBSD setup.  I know that it didn't work for
anything but a  thin slice of default environments, in the FreeBSD-7.x release era.

Some day, if & when the Linux developers are ready to admit there are other OSes
and document things more portably, both tools are really, really fine ideas.
Maybe ask again in 6 months to a year?  Or, get ready to read a lot of source
code and figure it out for yourself.  Right now looking at what email I can find
on the web regarding running hal & dbus on 7.2, no one else can find an easy
fund of knowledge either.