problems with hal in freebsd 7.2 i386

[chrisa at uvic.ca]

> On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, chrisa at uvic.ca wrote:
>
>>> Add the following to your X11 config and see what you come up with.
>>>
>>> Section "ServerFlags"
>>>          option  "AutoAddDevices"        "off"
>>>          option  "AllowEmptyInput"       "off"
>>> EndSection
>>>
>>> Best regards
>>
>> All right, I did that.
>
> What are you trying to fix with those entries?

Nothing. I was just doing it to see what happens.

>
>> Created a new xorg.conf since it's working with the autoconfig now.
>
> And what is in it?

Only this:

Section "ServerFlags"
        option  "AutoAddDevices"        "off"
        option  "AllowEmptyInput"       "off"
EndSection

and nothing else.

>
>> The mouse and keyboard still work, and Xorg.0.log follows.
>
>> (EE) config/hal: NewInputDeviceRequest failed (8)
>> (II) config/hal: Adding input device AT Keyboard
>> (EE) config/hal: NewInputDeviceRequest failed (8)
>
> Well, that's broken.  Look, there are basically two ways to configure
> keyboard and mouse for xorg.  There's the old way, where you have
> InputDevice entries for them in xorg.conf.
>
> Then there's the new way, where you run hal and let it handle the
> keyboard and mouse for xorg.  No InputDevice sections are needed.  For
> example, here is my xorg.conf from the Acer Aspire One.  Note the lack
> of InputDevice sections and those magic ServerFlags options.

It does indeed appear broken. The keyboard and mouse still work, though,
which doesn't make any sense to me. I don't have any InputDevice sections,
as you can see, so if hal isn't configuring the keyboard and mouse, what
is?