[Utopia] Re: [patch] one-to-many HAL integration

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Thu, 2004-08-12 at 22:17, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 09:08:36AM +0200, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > Also, the gnome-vfs-volume-ops.c parts means we have to link gnome-vfs
> > to libhal. I had hoped we could keep that dependency to the vfs daemon,
> > to decrease the number of libraries every app links to. (especially the
> > number of unstable libs.)
> 
> I agree that reducing dependicies is a godo thing, but wouldn't
> that require some code movement to do that?  If so, I have something
> related.

Why? We already only use HAL from the daemon, not from the lib.

> I'm trying to write my iriver driver which is not based on the
> usb mass storage driver but I have to communicate with the iriver
> mp3 player using USB commands.  But I want to be able to have the
> gnome-vfs daemon detect that the iriver is plugged in through HAL.

Yes, long term this is something i want to do. Extend the module API
with something you can load into the gnome-vfs daemon to look for plug
in/out of some hardware device the kernel doesn't handle, then use that
to create GnomeVFSVolumes with a uri to the method that allows you to
access the device. [I.E. the uri has to be of the form something like 
method://<device>/<path>, and not just method:///<path>, so we can
handle multiple devices etc]

> Currently davidz's patch does not address this corner case as it
> only receives from the HAL dbus channel events where the capability
> of the device is something the kernel sees as a 'disk'.  But the
> capability would have to go into gnome-vfs proper but thats not
> really optimal as you would have to support a lot of usb devices that
> uses libusb instead of usb mass storage.  

Yes. the current HAL code is only for file:/// mounted devices. Until we
extend the APIs (which won't happen for 2.8) this will continue to be
true.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's a fast talking shark-wrestling ex-con whom everyone believes is mad. 
She's a strong-willed motormouth pearl diver who can talk to animals. They 
fight crime!