[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#708117: hal segmentation fault after upgrade

[Aleksey Midenkov]

Package: hal
Version: 0.5.14-8
Severity: important


After upgrading from 0.5.14-4 I've got hal failing to start with core
dump. Sorry, hadn't saved screen output, but this doesn't matter. I've
compiled debug version and found the source of core. But this is not
the most important issue. More important is, that user have no clue of
what to do with such kind of problem. More useful message should be
printed, as done in patch.

The source of core was broken fdi cache. I don't know, why it got
broken, but I've fixed my with:

mkdir /etc/hal/fdi/preprobe
rm /var/cache/hald/fdi-cache
/usr/lib/hal/hald-generate-fdi-cache

The behavior of software is very fragile, because it refuses to work
in absence of some directories. Maybe this was the source of broken
cache...

P.S. I know that HAL is deprecated. But this is not the reason for
leaving users sinking in a swamp of inaccuracy. Please, forward this
patch to upstream if applicable.
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