# Hal seems to prevent switching back to terminal



## pcohen (Nov 8, 2011)

Hi,

I have an issue when trying to configure Xorg. I followed what was described in http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-config.html. When I tried to switch back to the terminal with FreeBSD 8.2 it made my machine simply reboot. Therefore I moved to 9.0-RC1. Now I can just not switch back to a terminal unless I deactivate HAL (but in that case I lose my mouse).

Has anyone any suggestion on how I could solve that?

For info here is some info on my hardware:
CPU: Intel Core i3 2100T,
Motherboard: Asus P8H67-I (RÃ©vision B3)

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Best Regards.


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## YZMSQ (Nov 9, 2011)

AFAIK, hal is a horrible thing, so it would be better to get it over by disabling hald and add this line to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf within the ServerLayout section:

```
Option          "AutoAddDevices" "Off"
```
If the xorg.conf file doesn't reside on your box, it's trivial to get one via:
`# X -configure`
Hopefully my words might contribute to your dealing with that problem.


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## kpedersen (Nov 9, 2011)

Apparently making an xorg.conf file is deprecated so the only solution I can see is to uninstall xorg-server from your machine and build a fresh one from ports making sure to uncheck HAL in the options.

Is there any good reason why the Xorg from packages has been built with HAL?


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## YZMSQ (Nov 9, 2011)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> Apparently making an xorg.conf file is deprecated so the only solution I can see is to uninstall xorg-server from your machine and build a fresh one from ports making sure to uncheck HAL in the options.
> 
> Is there any good reason why the Xorg from packages has been built with HAL?


Making an xorg.conf file isn't obsolete, AFAIK, especially when you want to set some options to improve performance.


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## wblock@ (Nov 9, 2011)

I'm lost from the start of this thread.  AFAIK, the built-in Intel whateveritscalled graphics don't work on Core i3 without the IntelGPU code, which is still experimental and requires -CURRENT.  And it does not support VTY switching.

So there are just way too many variables.  What version of FreeBSD?  What graphics card?  With or without the experimental IntelGPU code?

Oh, and xorg.conf is not required, which is very different from deprecated.


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## pcohen (Nov 9, 2011)

I can provide additional information if needed but this is fairly weird:
My hardware is the following - I have no additional graphic card:
CPU: Intel Core i3 2100T,
Motherboard: Asus P8H67-I (RÃ©vision B3)
I don't think any additional information about HDD or Memory is relevant for this topic but I might provide if you think so.
Here is my use case:
- I installed the 8.2-RELEASE and try to follow X configuration by following rules described in Handbook.
It worked except when trying to quit. With 8.2, server was simply restarted. I tried to install KDE and it started fine and everything was fine until I logged out and I got the same behavior: the server restarted.
- I recently tried with 9.0-RC1 and I got a different behavior being instead of rebooting, the system was stuck and I was not able to switch back to terminal with Ctrl+Alt+Fn. I tried just to disable hal and then it worked better but without hal, I had no mouse activated.

I did not try yet any suggestion. But I first wanted to clarify my use case if needed. I would like to precise that I am not aiming at using advanced features of the graphic card. I just wanted to have a basic running X environment. And honestly both in 9.0/8.2 cases, it is fine except that I cannot logout correctly which is not a major issue, but I definitely would be happy to better understand what is happening. 

It might be possible that the built in Intel graphics does not work at all but I am surprised to get something partially working in that case. I am definitely no expert but I doubt I did use the IntelGPU experimental code. I did not make any intentional task to use it.


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## wblock@ (Nov 9, 2011)

It may be using the vesa driver.  Please put /var/log/Xorg.0.log on pastebin.com (or elsewhere, if you have a convenient site) and post a link to it.


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## kpedersen (Nov 10, 2011)

Yeah, pretty sure xorg.conf is deprecated but did some research that it has been succeeded by xorg.conf.d/* stuffz.

(Which shouldn't affect the OP's issue)

Sorry for the FUD!


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## pcohen (Nov 10, 2011)

I made some clean up in order to provide you something reliable and repeatable and it worked.
I mean with hald started, everything ran fine. I have the mouse active but can also safely logout.
I am really confused and can't explain why it did not work before.

By the way, it is effectively the VESA driver.

Thanks for spending time and apologizes


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