kill hal for good!

[Martin Pitt]

hal has been a zombie in the archive for many years. It has been deprecated ages ago, replaced by much more robust and modern infrastructure, and since saucy it does not work at all any more. Let's kill the remaining few reverse dependencies and itself.

hal rdepends: wmbattery, moovida-plugins-good
libhal1 rdepends: xmbc-bin, libthunar-vfs-1-2, libsynce0, librapi2, libhd16

Note that libthunar-vfs-1-2 itself has been abandoned by Xfce long ago, in favor of using gvfs. The squeeze package is the only thing that still seems to use it, but it's not even seeded in Xubuntu so we might just be able to drop that as well?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Lionel: Simon confirmed that it's probably OK to kill thunar-vfs and squeeze, can you confirm? Of course squeeze can be reintroduced once it gets rewritten using gvfs.

[Stephen Michael Kellat (skellat)]

Micah Gersten, your opinion on this is also sought. Xubuntu Bugs has been subscribed to watch during this.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

ochosi | pitti: upstream squeeze-dev also suggested dropping it btw (just asked)

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Is moovida in a usable state at all? AFAIK it’s been unmaintained for several years, it might also be a good time to remove it from the archive.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Could be. For now I've prepared an upload to drop the hal plugin, but if we want to remove it completely, I also don't mind.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

dell-recovery was fixed ages ago, it's just a legacy alternative dependency.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Removing packages from saucy:
 wmbattery 2.41ubuntu1 in saucy
  wmbattery 2.41ubuntu1 in saucy amd64
  wmbattery 2.41ubuntu1 in saucy armhf
  wmbattery 2.41ubuntu1 in saucy i386
  wmbattery 2.41ubuntu1 in saucy powerpc
Comment: uses deprecated and broken hal, Debian #613166
Remove [y|N]? y
1 package successfully removed.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

hwinfo is itself rather crufty, unmaintained in Debian. It has one reverse dependency, goto-common.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package libsynce - 0.15-1.1ubuntu1

---------------
libsynce (0.15-1.1ubuntu1) saucy; urgency=low

  * Drop libhal-dev build dependency and disable hal support. Hal is
    irrecoverably broken in saucy now. (LP: #1221254, Closes: #613179)
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Thu, 05 Sep 2013 16:33:38 +0200

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package moovida-plugins-good - 1.0.9+bzr1614-1ubuntu2

---------------
moovida-plugins-good (1.0.9+bzr1614-1ubuntu2) saucy; urgency=low

  * Drop hal dependency and hal plugins. (LP: #1221254, Closes: #613510)
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Thu, 05 Sep 2013 16:55:09 +0200

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

librapi2 has a --disable-hal option, but it fails to build with that. But its only reverse dependencies are librra which itself has no reverse dependencies, and synce-gnomevfs, which is obsolete because gnomevfs has been deprecated ages ago. So I think these all should just be removed.

Removing packages from saucy:
 synce-gnomevfs 0.13-2.1 in saucy
  synce-gnomevfs 0.13-2.1 in saucy amd64
  synce-gnomevfs 0.13-2.1 in saucy armhf
  synce-gnomevfs 0.13-2.1 in saucy i386
  synce-gnomevfs 0.13-2.1 in saucy powerpc
Comment: gnome-vfs deprecated long ago, synce unmaintained, depends on broken HAL (#1221254)

Removing packages from saucy:
 librra 0.14-1.3 in saucy
  librra-dbg 0.14-1.3 in saucy amd64
  librra-dbg 0.14-1.3 in saucy armhf
  librra-dbg 0.14-1.3 in saucy i386
  librra-dbg 0.14-1.3 in saucy powerpc
  librra-dev 0.14-1.3 in saucy amd64
  librra-dev 0.14-1.3 in saucy armhf
  librra-dev 0.14-1.3 in saucy i386
  librra-dev 0.14-1.3 in saucy powerpc
  librra-tools 0.14-1.3 in saucy amd64
  librra-tools 0.14-1.3 in saucy armhf
  librra-tools 0.14-1.3 in saucy i386
  librra-tools 0.14-1.3 in saucy powerpc
  librra0 0.14-1.3 in saucy amd64
  librra0 0.14-1.3 in saucy armhf
  librra0 0.14-1.3 in saucy i386
  librra0 0.14-1.3 in saucy powerpc
  python-rra 0.14-1.3 in saucy amd64
  python-rra 0.14-1.3 in saucy armhf
  python-rra 0.14-1.3 in saucy i386
  python-rra 0.14-1.3 in saucy powerpc
Comment: keeps broken librapi2 in archive, abandoned in Debian, depends on broken HAL (#1221254), no further reverse depends

Removing packages from saucy:
 librapi2 0.15-2.2 in saucy
  librapi2 0.15-2.2 in saucy amd64
  librapi2 0.15-2.2 in saucy armhf
  librapi2 0.15-2.2 in saucy i386
  librapi2 0.15-2.2 in saucy powerpc
  librapi2-dbg 0.15-2.2 in saucy amd64
  librapi2-dbg 0.15-2.2 in saucy armhf
  librapi2-dbg 0.15-2.2 in saucy i386
  librapi2-dbg 0.15-2.2 in saucy powerpc
  librapi2-dev 0.15-2.2 in saucy amd64
  librapi2-dev 0.15-2.2 in saucy armhf
  librapi2-dev 0.15-2.2 in saucy i386
  librapi2-dev 0.15-2.2 in saucy powerpc
  librapi2-tools 0.15-2.2 in saucy amd64
  librapi2-tools 0.15-2.2 in saucy armhf
  librapi2-tools 0.15-2.2 in saucy i386
  librapi2-tools 0.15-2.2 in saucy powerpc
  python-rapi2 0.15-2.2 in saucy amd64
  python-rapi2 0.15-2.2 in saucy armhf
  python-rapi2 0.15-2.2 in saucy i386
  python-rapi2 0.15-2.2 in saucy powerpc
Comment: abandoned in Debian, depends on broken HAL (#1221254), no further reverse depends
Remove [y|N]? y

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package goto-common - 3.1-1ubuntu1

---------------
goto-common (3.1-1ubuntu1) saucy; urgency=low

  * Drop unused hwinfo depends. (LP: #1221254)
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:13:01 +0200

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

 hwinfo 16.0-2.2 in saucy
  hwinfo 16.0-2.2 in saucy amd64
  hwinfo 16.0-2.2 in saucy armhf
  hwinfo 16.0-2.2 in saucy i386
  hwinfo 16.0-2.2 in saucy powerpc
  libhd-dev 16.0-2.2 in saucy amd64
  libhd-dev 16.0-2.2 in saucy armhf
  libhd-dev 16.0-2.2 in saucy i386
  libhd-dev 16.0-2.2 in saucy powerpc
  libhd-doc 16.0-2.2 in saucy amd64
  libhd-doc 16.0-2.2 in saucy armhf
  libhd-doc 16.0-2.2 in saucy i386
  libhd-doc 16.0-2.2 in saucy powerpc
  libhd16 16.0-2.2 in saucy amd64
  libhd16 16.0-2.2 in saucy armhf
  libhd16 16.0-2.2 in saucy i386
  libhd16 16.0-2.2 in saucy powerpc
Comment: uses deprecated and broken hal, unmaintained in Debian, obsolete, LP#1221254

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package xbmc - 2:12.0~git20130103.0959-rc3-0ubuntu2

---------------
xbmc (2:12.0~git20130103.0959-rc3-0ubuntu2) saucy; urgency=low

  * Disable hal support (LP: #1221254, Closes: #676702)
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:20:55 +0200

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

Feel free to nuke thunar-vfs and squeeze. An alternative is to rebuild thunar-vfs with --with-volume-manager=none.
Thanks.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Thanks for confirming! Nice, these are the last two things.

Removing packages from saucy:
 thunar-vfs 1.2.0-3build2 in saucy
Comment: uses deprecated and broken hal, obsoleted by gvfs, LP #1221254

Removing packages from saucy:
 squeeze 0.2.3-12build1 in saucy
Comment: uses deprecated thunar-vfs, crashes, not being used in Xubuntu, LP #1221254

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Party!!

Removing packages from saucy:
 hal 0.5.14-8ubuntu2 in saucy
Comment: deprecated years ago, broken in saucy, no remaining reverse depends, LP #1221254

[John Lenton (chipaca)]

Um.

By removing hal, you're removing users ability to watch Amazon video, or any other flash drm-based video (the only kind of for-pay commercial video available on Ubuntu).

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

But hal doesn't work in saucy any more anyway. Chris Coulson said that he has a shim somewhere which provides that one required hal D-BUS interface (for reading system serial IDs).

[Michael Blennerhassett (mjblenner)]

If anyone wants hal for saucy, this ppa here:

https://launchpad.net/~mjblenner/+archive/ppa-hal

works for me, at least for the flash DRM video case.

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

Can we have a shim in-place enough to keep adobe flash-plugin working?

Otherwise third-party DRM protected streaming content does not work with flash.

[Jay Bowles (penguinclaw)]

I cannot watch DRM flash in 4od, amazon etc so my question is will there be an alternative app developed to provide this functionality? I find it a nuisance to have to watch these in windows. Unfortunately I do not posses the required skills to provide a hack myself. I realise that #23 provides a temporary solution but what about the future? This could be a real put off for a lot of new users.

[Ｖ字龍(Vdragon) (vdragon)]

Hi, I would like to ask if there's any alternative to `hwinfo --framebuffer`? I wanted to checkout the vbemodes support by my system but there's no more "hwinfo" tool in >=saucy because of this bug.

The exact same problem here in askubuntu: http://askubuntu.com/questions/371910/what-is-an-alternative-for-hwinfo-that-shows-the-vbe-supported-modes

Thanks in advance!

[Ｖ字龍(Vdragon) (vdragon)]

(continued) BTW I can't check vbemodes in GRUB bootloader due to `vbeinfo` command output too many messages which overflows my monitor.

[Jackson Doak (noskcaj)]

One package still has recommends on hal, "dff".
Upstream says that libudev can replace hal +dbus, so this shouldn't be too hard to fix.
Preliminary work is at https://launchpad.net/~noskcaj/+archive/ubuntu/build/+files/dff_1.3.0%2Bdfsg.1-4.1ubuntu1~vidid1.dsc

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Thanks Jackson! Can you please also send the diff as a Debian bug report?

[Ｖ字龍(Vdragon) (vdragon)]

UPDATE for #27
Got a way to avoid the vbeinfo output issue

grub console > set pager=1

will enable `less`-like function to scroll the message page by page.

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

The adobe-flashplugin package doesn't require or recommend hal in the control file. Setting as invalid.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Nothing to sponsor here right now. Please re-subscribe ubuntu-sponsors once there is a patch for dff to upload. Thanks!