From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 29 21:56:00 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 430731065676 for ; Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:56:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freminlins@gmail.com) Received: from mail-ew0-f218.google.com (mail-ew0-f218.google.com [209.85.219.218]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C24388FC1F for ; Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:55:59 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy18 with SMTP id 18so2202254ewy.43 for ; Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:55:59 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:date:message-id:subject :from:to:content-type; bh=5d5qs/lN84mdmnnlAOq253Vq99jrl0ibyPxUU3VZy1U=; b=WLA+Jl1rQcgGfS71RzS8qR3IaLT9SENUonNvrQyi36cgGfRszAMQy7SEQQfaLMixNp dyImoSuACjhsZPqz/7cgeQEG1lOm+nhgPiqxTifVui5XL/4L9XWDP7jpT+AeVVGLF0BQ PVSwBvumESbja/DN4gVHb+zL87c2+GEFy/a/M= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; b=eMrTmGpdmG/J27/yp0jXi5PQbT8eqeHuSy3RU/tlPraHmWQZbPd/TXTJaD0/jS+BHg 6Mckrg559gmLa723k+THckscuPZF97bIpvR2e51N5x5SXg8m1a6bWEJzw63Zh+sKC2KT TNpOJbJDfZapj0EPY5ferbKGyd26g3x9aUFW4= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.211.147.7 with SMTP id z7mr3266223ebn.4.1256853358946; Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:55:58 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:55:58 +0000 Message-ID: From: Freminlins To: FreeBSD Questions Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: Effing HAL X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:56:00 -0000 For Christ's sake. I have an IBM X41 laptop, which was happily running FreeBSD 7.1. Having a little free time this evening I decided to update it to 7.2. The upgrade failed miserably so I had to install from scratch. But that's OK, because I had backed up the machine beforehand. The install went through fine (via NFS after PXE boot - no CDROM on this box). And then I get to X. As this is a minor update I go to use the old Xorg config which worked fine. No joy. I get the dreaded "No screens found" error, although the screen is there of course. After trying X -configure several times, tweaking, etc., I get nowhere slowly. i810 is now just intel, but whatever. The screen comes up, but no mouse or keyboard. After yet much more fiddling and tweaking I finally get to the crux of the problem: fricking HAL. Having installed this from scratch using the X User defaults I might have expected that something that is now required to get the flipping keyboard and mouse working would be enabled by the installer. But no, I have to waste time on this crap just to get back to where I was before. Oh, and HAL uses 6MB or so of RAM. Not a lot. But as I already specify the hardware in the Xorg conf file it is, as far as I can see, an unnecessary waste. I thought it would be easy, but no, it's just a pain. It's wasn't unsolvable, as I have years of fiddling with UNIX and FreeBSD in particular. But for effing Christ's sake. I know this isn't specifically a FreeBSD problem, HAL being needed by X. But the flipping installer should enable it when I selected X flipping User from the install options. My little upgrade has now turned from a bit of fun into a saga that I don't want to go through again. I had to get this off my chest. It was, as they say, doing my head in. MF.