[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#465810: hal: xorg input hotplugging: insufficient docs and references

[Eduard Bloch]

Package: hal
Version: 0.5.10-5
Severity: minor

Hello,

setting up Xorg input hotpluging with HAL is a bit annoying and I will
try to explain why.

 - the feature is not mentioned at any prominent place. There is a long
   way from seeing some "could not get hal context" message in
   Xorg.0.log to finding 10-x11-input.fdi . Such hints should be
   placed in README.Debian and in NEWS once, and also in
   xserver-xorg-core package.

 - 10-x11-input.fdi installation is not automatic... a simple howto
   might be placed in README.Debian or so.

 - 10-x11-input.fdi is missing important examples for keyboard settings
   (below). 10-keymap.fdi file were mentioned by people on IRC but it's
   not clear how it is related to X11 (looking at its location) and it
   is still missing some of the relevant options. It should contain at
   least:
   
   input.xkb.model -> XkbModel
   input.xkb.layout -> XkbLayout
   input.xkb.variant -> XkbVariant
   input.xkb.options -> XkbOptions

   Some reference to evdev(4) and kbd(4) or the /etc/X11/xkb/README*
   files wouldn't hurt either, to see the possible values there.

 - the documentation of the options/parameters (i.e.
   /usr/share/doc/hal-doc/spec/hal-spec.html) should be referenced in
   the example file.

I hope you will consider some of the ideas above to improve the
documentation.

Thanks,
Eduard.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.24 (PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages hal depends on:
ii  adduser                 3.105            add and remove users and groups
ii  dbus                    1.1.2-1          simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  hal-info                20071212-2       Hardware Abstraction Layer - fdi f
ii  libc6                   2.7-6            GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libdbus-1-3             1.1.2-1          simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2        0.74-1           simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libexpat1               1.95.8-4         XML parsing C library - runtime li
ii  libgcc1                 1:4.3-20080202-1 GCC support library
ii  libglib2.0-0            2.14.6-1         The GLib library of C routines
ii  libhal-storage1         0.5.10-5         Hardware Abstraction Layer - share
ii  libhal1                 0.5.10-5         Hardware Abstraction Layer - share
ii  libsmbios1              0.13.10-1        Provide access to (SM)BIOS informa
ii  libstdc++6              4.3-20080202-1   The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libusb-0.1-4            2:0.1.12-9       userspace USB programming library
ii  libvolume-id0           0.114-2          libvolume_id shared library
ii  lsb-base                3.1-24           Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip
ii  mount                   2.13.1-1         Tools for mounting and manipulatin
ii  pciutils                1:2.2.9-2        Linux PCI Utilities
ii  pm-utils                0.99.2-3         utilities and scripts for power ma
ii  udev                    0.114-2          /dev/ and hotplug management daemo
ii  usbutils                0.73-5           Linux USB utilities

Versions of packages hal recommends:
ii  eject                         2.1.5-6    ejects CDs and operates CD-Changer
ii  libsmbios-bin                 0.13.10-1  Provide access to (SM)BIOS informa

-- no debconf information