Starting HAL crashes whole system

Question

Hi,
I have encountered a serious issue with HAL.
If I try to start HAL, either by issuing the command "/etc/rc.d/hal start" or appending "hal" to the "DAEMONS" array in /etc/rc.conf, my machine eventually stops responding (after about 1 min).
But worse, when I leave it running and try to run some commands in another console, I get errors from the file system saying that it cannot access any files (I can try to reproduce it if you want me to be more precise).
So this seems like a kernel mode bug (is hal running in kernel mode?).
To get some debugging info, I used some parameters found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingHal
I edited /etc/rc.d/hal and replaced
/usr/sbin/hald
with
/usr/sbin/hald --verbose=yes --daemon=no 2>&1 | ssh user@remotehost tee hal.log
The reason for using a remote file is that my log file is gone after crash and reboot if it is stored locally.
The resulting log file can be found at http://www.tinysave.net/files/download.php?file=496341
I thought this might get fixed if I just waited, but it has been around a few months with my fully upgraded Archlinux 64 bit, so I decided to ask for your help.
My system works otherwise flawlessly if I don't start hal.
Please let me know if you need more information like command outputs or log files.
Thank you for any help on this issue!
Last edited by xtreme (2009-01-02 11:05:47)

Answer 1

# /etc/inittab
# Runlevels:
# 0 Halt
# 1(S) Single-user
# 2 Not used
# 3 Multi-user
# 4 Not used
# 5 X11
# 6 Reboot
## Only one of the following two lines can be uncommented!
# Boot to console
id:3:initdefault:
# Boot to X11
#id:5:initdefault:
rc::sysinit:/etc/rc.sysinit
rs:S1:wait:/etc/rc.single
rm:2345:wait:/etc/rc.multi
rh:06:wait:/etc/rc.shutdown
su:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin -p
# -8 options fixes umlauts problem on login
c1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/1 linux
c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/2 linux
c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/3 linux
c4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/4 linux
c5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/5 linux
c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/6 linux
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now
# Example lines for starting a login manager
x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/xdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/gdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/opt/kde/bin/kdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/slim >& /dev/null
# End of file
I'm using KDM...