[Tfug] The 3.5.7 kernel

[John Gruenenfelder]

On Mar 8, 2013 9:55 AM, "erich" <erich1 at copper.net> wrote:
>
> OK,
>         We're not in Kansas anymore. I got this box up and running. I've installed
> Thunar and Gnome. The network facility works great, but these new kernels
> have a lot of stuff that's dynamic. There's no HAL daemon anymore.
> What do you add to your 3.5.7 system that lets it sense external hardware such
> as a USB hard drive or DVD?

Erich,

My understanding is that the HAL daemon has been deprecated in favor
of udev for several years now.  udev should be capable of doing
everything hal could do and more.

As others have pointed out, though, it is only part of the puzzle. If
you want hot-plugging and/or automounting of devices in your desktop
then there are more packages you need.  By itself, udev should be able
to handle a lot, such as autoloading modules in response to plugging
in a USB device, for example.

If you did a normal install of Ubuntu then it should have installed
everything you need.  It seems it did not, though.  I would try to
rely on the package managers suggestions to find what you are missing.
 For example, I use the "text/console GUI" interface you see when you
run "aptitude" without argument.  It provides prodigious information
for the selected package such as what it suggests, recommends, and
depends on.  It can also do the reverse and show what *other* packages
suggest, recommand, depend, and conflict on the package you have
selected.

Put it all together and you can usually follow the trail and find what
you are missing.  You could start with your GUI of choice, such as
gnome-shell or unity, and go from there.  Since bits are functional,
you clearly aren't missing any "depends" packages.  That would seem to
indicate that the missing functionality falls into the suggests or
recommends category.

I've done procedures like this in the past.  Not for this particular
missing ability, but I have, a few times, gone back to see what extra
packages I might have missed that could offer extra functionality that
I might find useful.  Since aptitude can give so much information and
allows you do drill down through the dependency tree to a seemingly
arbitrary depth, the process isn't too difficult.

Hope that offers some help.


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