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• Launchpad Entry: hardy-hardware-detection

• Packages affected: hal, cryptsetup, consolekit, udev, discover, xorg

Summary

In the last years, upstreams have provided vast improvements in hardware detection infrastructure. We review which parts of Debian/Ubuntu specific hardware detection bits are obsolete and how to consolidate and update them.

Release Note

This section should include a paragraph describing the end-user impact of this change. It is meant to be included in the release notes of the first release in which it is implemented. (Not all of these will actually be included in the release notes, at the release manager's discretion; but writing them is a useful exercise.)

It is mandatory.

Rationale

• Remove maintenance in Debian/Ubuntu, use upstream's solution.
• Much more dynamic.
• Much more robust, since removing overhead.

Use Cases

Assumptions

Design

You can have subsections that better describe specific parts of the issue.

Implementation

This section should describe a plan of action (the "how") to implement the changes discussed. Could include subsections like:

UI Changes

Should cover changes required to the UI, or specific UI that is required to implement this

Code Changes

Code changes should include an overview of what needs to change, and in some cases even the specific details.

Migration

Include:

• data migration, if any
• redirects from old URLs to new ones, if any
• how users will be pointed to the new way of doing things, if necessary.

Test/Demo Plan

It's important that we are able to test new features, and demonstrate them to users. Use this section to describe a short plan that anybody can follow that demonstrates the feature is working. This can then be used during CD testing, and to show off after release.

This need not be added or completed until the specification is nearing beta.

Outstanding Issues

This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.

BoF agenda and discussion

Use this section to take notes during the BoF; if you keep it in the approved spec, use it for summarising what was discussed and note any options that were rejected.

Areas to discuss:

• Replace group-based device permissions (like plugdev and scanner) with hal/consolekit ACLs.

• Get rid of long vendor/product ID based udev rules (libgphoto, libsane) with small and generic solutions like above ACLs.
  • double-check vulnerability vectors of ieee1394 devices (they are physical vulnerabilities, but is there a software side to worry about?) (it is a real issue, but affects the other side of the chain)
• Drop the discover package and clean up the vast Debian X.org config scripts in favor of X.org's vastly improved autodetection capabilities (hal-based input hotplug, automatic driver/resolution detection, etc.).
  • configure default keyboard layout in /etc hal FDI

  • Debian is about to do the same for xorg, and we've been in touch with them regarding this change. TimoAaltonen

  • built-in preference list (like nvidia -> nv -> vesa), so that overrides are not necessary in general

  • overrides in xorg.conf should still be supported
  • check whether we can drop the fonts section (test with xlsfonts)
  • we will keep debconf interface, but aim to base it on guidance-backends

  • Would be nice to have something like sysfs for various X parameters (drivers, pciid->driver mappings, etc.) Much of this info can be gathered via various disparate tools (e.g. xdpyinfo, xdriinfo, xrandr...) however a unified api would give this all in one go and would be much easier.

• HAL quirks/pm-utils vs. Ubuntu's acpi-support -- LukaRenko DateTime(2007-10-28T20:14:03Z)

  • already has consent from Matthew Garrett, hal upstream now only supports pm-utils; we will gradually move logic from acpi-support and powermanagement-interface to to pm-utils
• make /class/usb_device go away
  • Is a separate kobject to the USB device, and is created late, so attempting to use libusb stuff from USB bus entries fails. Set CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_CLASS=n and they go away to be replaced by additional attributes on the USB device.
  • Also get rid of the /class heirachy with CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED=n so that everything is under /devices where it should be.
  • And CONFIG_TMPFS_POSIX_ACL=y so we can do policykit/consolekit.
• drop legacy kernel options
• sync udev rules with upstream

CategorySpec