HAL, and daemons in general

Question

Hi. I'm new to the forums, and this is the third thread I've started; I haven't been getting any responses, so I hope I'm not posting in the wrong place, spamming, or being otherwise annoying.
When I boot up, I get a message about my hardware abstraction layer [failed]-ing. Here's my rc.conf:
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux
# LOCALIZATION
# LOCALE: available languages can be listed with the 'locale -a' command
# HARDWARECLOCK: set to "UTC" or "localtime"
# USEDIRECTISA: use direct I/O requests instead of /dev/rtc for hwclock
# TIMEZONE: timezones are found in /usr/share/zoneinfo
# KEYMAP: keymaps are found in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps
# CONSOLEFONT: found in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts (only needed for non-US)
# CONSOLEMAP: found in /usr/share/kbd/consoletrans
# USECOLOR: use ANSI color sequences in startup messages
LOCALE="en_US.utf8"
HARDWARECLOCK="UTC"
USEDIRECTISA="no"
TIMEZONE="America/Chicago"
KEYMAP="us"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
USECOLOR="yes"
# HARDWARE
# MOD_AUTOLOAD: Allow autoloading of modules at boot and when needed
# MOD_BLACKLIST: Prevent udev from loading these modules
# MODULES: Modules to load at boot-up. Prefix with a ! to blacklist.
# NOTE: Use of 'MOD_BLACKLIST' is deprecated. Please use ! in the MODULES array.
MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes"
#MOD_BLACKLIST=() #deprecated
#MODULES=(snd_pcsp)
MODULES=(fglrx !pcspeaker !snd_pcsp)
# Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM
USELVM="no"
# NETWORKING
# HOSTNAME: Hostname of machine. Should also be put in /etc/hosts
HOSTNAME="Bender"
# Use 'ifconfig -a' or 'ls /sys/class/net/' to see all available interfaces.
# Interfaces to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each interface then list in INTERFACES
# - prefix an entry in INTERFACES with a ! to disable it
# - no hyphens in your interface names - Bash doesn't like it
# DHCP: Set your interface to "dhcp" (eth0="dhcp")
# Wireless: See network profiles below
#eth0="eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255"
eth0="dhcp"
wlan0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(lo !eth0 !wlan0)
# Routes to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each route then list in ROUTES
# - prefix an entry in ROUTES with a ! to disable it
gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"
#ROUTES=(!gateway)
ROUTES=(gateway)
# Enable these network profiles at boot-up. These are only useful
# if you happen to need multiple network configurations (ie, laptop users)
# - set to 'menu' to present a menu during boot-up (dialog package required)
# - prefix an entry with a ! to disable it
# Network profiles are found in /etc/network.d
# This now requires the netcfg package
#NETWORKS=(main)
# DAEMONS
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
# - prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it
# - prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background
DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng pulseaudio hal !network !dhcdbd !networkmanager wicd netfs @crond alsa @openntpd)
#DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng !network pulseaudio hal dhcdbd networkmanager netfs @crond alsa @openntpd)
#DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network netfs crond)
Anyone know what's wrong here? Also, is there a way to look at all those messages that scroll past when you're booting? Shift+UpArrow doesn't work because the screen is reset at the end, and about half the messages get lost.
Also, is there a one-stop place to go for a list of all the daemons with a basic description of what they do? I'd like to start as many as I can in the background, but I'm afraid I'll break something. I'd also like to know which daemons need other daemons to start before them, so I can reorder the ones that don't matter to my liking.
One last thing, and not really related to the topic title (hope that's okay, seems like such a minor thing it doesn't need to take up a whole thread): I've been using 'shutdown -h now' to power down. Is that good or bad? Is there a way to get rid of the *beep* when I do this?
Thanks a bunch!
Last edited by Buce (2009-03-20 20:50:54)

Answer 1

Inxsible wrote:Generally it is a good thing to start hal before anything else. Try putting pulseaudio after hal in the DAEMONS array and see if that gets rid of the hal issue.
Worked like a charm, thanks!
And yes, its perfectly fine to use sudo shutdown -h now. There are other commands like halt and poweroff. But poweroff, AFAIK, is only a symlink to shutdown -h now
On my system, poweroff is a symlink to halt. But, either command makes a *beep* sound when I invoke it -- there must be some way to get rid of this. Shutting down didn't do that in Ubuntu when I hit the gui power button. How do they achieve that? Would it take a gui app to do? I'm running fluxbox, and I'd rather not go that route.
About which daemons to start in the background -- I start everything in the background except - syslog-ng - that's the daemon responsible for logging events and such, you do not want to miss the logging if something goes wrong.
Even hal? Seems like that's something I'd want to start before everything else, too.