Here's a slight variant on the patch with much stronger wording in the NEWS entry, and some more detail in debian/changelog. We want to be very clear that we want people to use hal. I didn't go so far as to say that not using hal won't be supported in the future, but I did try to get across that the user is entirely responsible for their input configuration if they choose not to use hal.
- David Nusinow
>From 9e594116533cedccf273b216ccdce6585c9696bb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: David Nusinow <dnusi...@debian.org> Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:31:26 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Demote hal Depends: to Recommends:. For that add a NEWS.Debian entry that people have to be careful on upgrades to not lose their input devices (without hal it needs a config option). Thanks Joerg Jaspert. Require that this config option be set when hal is absent during postinst --- debian/changelog | 6 ++++++ debian/control | 3 +-- debian/xserver-xorg.NEWS | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++ debian/xserver-xorg.postinst.in | 4 ++++ 4 files changed, 32 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog index bc0a3b5..5d4287e 100644 --- a/debian/changelog +++ b/debian/changelog @@ -4,6 +4,12 @@ xorg (1:7.4+2) UNRELEASED; urgency=low * Don't discuss removal of xserver-xorg in its description. It remains tied to -core at this point. (closes: #523630). + + * Demote hal Depends: to Recommends:. For that add a NEWS.Debian entry + that people have to be careful on upgrades to not lose their input + devices (without hal it needs a config option). Thanks Joerg Jaspert. + + Require that this config option be set when hal is absent during + postinst -- Julien Cristau <jcris...@debian.org> Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:12:51 +0100 diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control index 350ebb1..cc2b023 100644 --- a/debian/control +++ b/debian/control @@ -86,13 +86,12 @@ Depends: xserver-xorg-input-evdev [alpha amd64 arm armeb armel hppa i386 ia64 lpia m32r m68k mips mipsel powerpc sparc], xserver-xorg-video-all | xserver-xorg-video-5, xserver-xorg-input-all | xserver-xorg-input-4, - hal (>= 0.5.12~git20090406), console-setup (>= 1.29), ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, xkb-data (>= 1.4), x11-xkb-utils -Recommends: libgl1-mesa-dri, udev +Recommends: libgl1-mesa-dri, udev, hal (>= 0.5.12~git20090406) Description: the X.Org X server This package depends on the full suite of the server and drivers for the X.Org X server, as well as providing a configuration infrastructure to manage diff --git a/debian/xserver-xorg.NEWS b/debian/xserver-xorg.NEWS index 6987bec..2221c53 100644 --- a/debian/xserver-xorg.NEWS +++ b/debian/xserver-xorg.NEWS @@ -1,3 +1,24 @@ +xserver-xorg (1:7.4+2) unstable; urgency=low + + Starting with this release, hal is a recommended rather than + depended-upon package. This is because, although the X server + remains capable of configuring input devices without hal, it is + strongly recommended that you use this method unless there is a good + reason otherwise. Using hal provides the X server with the ability + to dynamically and correctly configure input devices while running, + and as a result it will be the best supported and most easily + maintained method of handling input devices for the forseeable + future. + + If you choose to run your system without hal, you will have to take + all responsibility for manually configuring your input devices via + xorg.conf. To ensure working input devices for your X server when + hal is absent, add 'Option "AutoAddDevices" "off"' in the + ServerLayout section of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf (without the outer + '') and configure input devices as you did in the past. + + -- David Nusinow <dnusi...@debian.org> Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:24:09 -0400 + xserver-xorg (1:7.4+1) unstable; urgency=low Starting from this version, input devices are no longer configured diff --git a/debian/xserver-xorg.postinst.in b/debian/xserver-xorg.postinst.in index 7f75de2..be31457 100644 --- a/debian/xserver-xorg.postinst.in +++ b/debian/xserver-xorg.postinst.in @@ -270,6 +270,10 @@ fi debug_echo "Configuring $THIS_PACKAGE." +if ! [ -x /usr/sbin/hald ] && ! grep -q AutoAddDevices "${XORGCONFIG}"; then + bomb "Please either install hal or configure your xorg.conf to work without, see NEWS entry for xserver-xorg version 1:7.4+2" +fi + if [ -n "$FIRSTINST" ] || [ -n "$RECONFIGURE" ]; then # BusID PRIORITY=low -- 1.6.2.2