# Xorg on FreeBSD 8.0RC1



## quakerdoomer (Sep 24, 2009)

I did a default pkg_add -rv xorg. It didn't build any Xorg.conf.
A direct startx command with nothing unchanged gave me a twm screen (3 console windows) but mouse and keyboard disabled.
A peek into /var/log/Xorg.log said that entries for CoreKeyboard and Mouse device are missing.

Later on I used the Xorg.conf script created by Xorg -configure.
A direct startx or ./X didnt give twm and this is what I found in the error log

```
(WW) AllowEmptyInput is on, devices using drivers 'kbd', 'mouse' or 'vmmouse' will be disabled.
(WW) Disabling Mouse0
(WW) Disabling Keyboard0
```

Which file does X use when there is no Xorg.conf in /etc/X11 ?
How do I enable keyboard and mouse without having any Xorg.conf ?


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## DutchDaemon (Sep 24, 2009)

Have you read the sticky at the top of the X.org sub-forum?


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## SirDice (Sep 24, 2009)

DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> Have you read the sticky at the top of the X.org sub-forum?


Probably not as the answer is in there :OO


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## quakerdoomer (Sep 24, 2009)

LoLz. Got it. Thanks 
BTW Is there a replacement for Ctrl+Alt+BACKSPACE ? It does't seem to work anymore !
- Can anyone reveal why has it been removed and ..
- Why are the inputs depending on Hardware Abstraction directly ?

It would be better f someone points me to some official technical description written somewhere about the above queries.
Thanks


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## phoenix (Sep 24, 2009)

Do a search for that keypress and you'll see the magic incantation that must be done at midnight under a new moon while waving dead chickens over the carcasses of ancient PCs.  Once that is done, things will work as they always have.  

(Hint:  search for DontZap)


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## phoenix (Sep 24, 2009)

quakerdoomer said:
			
		

> - Can anyone reveal why has it been removed and ..



Something along the lines of "users are stupid; CAB is powerful; must protect users from themselves" from the X.org and Ubuntu devs.    So much for educating users such they can protect themselves.



> - Why are the inputs depending on Hardware Abstraction directly ?



Because X.org devs believe "there is only Linux" and Linux uses HAL for hardware detection, therefore everyone must be forced to use HAL for hardware detection, regardless of whether or not the system has proper/working hardware detection.    Would be nice if devs for cross-platform apps like X.org would take the time to learn about the features and capabilities of the platforms they are running on, and would use the native features of the system.  In so many ways, FreeBSD devd(8), devfs(5), moused(8), and kbdmux(4) are light-years ahead of HAL.

Hopefully, the DeviceKit devs will make backends that are specific to the systems they are running on (ie, use devd et all when installed on FreeBSD).


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## SirDice (Sep 24, 2009)

In all fairness HAL is supposed to take the whole figuring out on which OS code runs and have different code for different systems out of the hands of the developers creating the applications that make use of it.

Surely it must be quite trivial to make HAL use the underlying devd, devfs etc. Granted you would get a dumbed down version at a higher level but it would make it simpler for application developers that need to make use of mice, keyboards etc. 

On the other hand we could push our 'superior' features up the chain into HAL and more or less force Linux to adapt to that :e


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## adamk (Sep 24, 2009)

phoenix said:
			
		

> Something along the lines of "users are stupid; CAB is powerful; must protect users from themselves" from the X.org and Ubuntu devs.    So much for educating users such they can protect themselves.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'm not sure I can put much blame on the Xorg developers.  If there was more than one FreeBSD developer who actually worked on Xorg, there might be more focus on better integration with FreeBSD.

Adam


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## Beastie (Sep 24, 2009)

quakerdoomer said:
			
		

> - Why are the inputs depending on Hardware Abstraction directly ?


If you don't use a desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, Xfce), you can always disable AutoAddDevices (in /etc/X11/xorg.conf) and just don't use HAL at all if you want, and use the mouse daemon instead.


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## Beastie (Sep 24, 2009)

Have you ever noticed that HAL creates a new process every 2 seconds (i.e. for every mouse probe) when X is not running?

Once, at the end of the day, top(1)'s "last pid" was something like ~4,000. I logged out of X and left the machine. When I came back "last pid" was higher than ~13,000!


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## phoenix (Sep 25, 2009)

SirDice said:
			
		

> In all fairness HAL is supposed to take the whole figuring out on which OS code runs and have different code for different systems out of the hands of the developers creating the applications that make use of it.
> 
> Surely it must be quite trivial to make HAL use the underlying devd, devfs etc. Granted you would get a dumbed down version at a higher level but it would make it simpler for application developers that need to make use of mice, keyboards etc.
> 
> On the other hand we could push our 'superior' features up the chain into HAL and more or less force Linux to adapt to that :e



That's the theory.  In reality, HAL uses polling pretty much everywhere to find out if things have happened, instead of the waiting for notifications from the kernel..  That's one of the main reasons for the development of DeviceKit.  Here's hoping that the DeviceKit devs remember that there's more than just Linux out there.  (Not holding my breath, though, as it's mostly RedHat devs. Granted, PackageKit appears to have figured out the separate backends issue, so maybe that will transfer over to DeviceKit.)


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## richardpl (Sep 25, 2009)

phoenix said:
			
		

> Do a search for that keypress and you'll see the magic incantation that must be done at midnight under a new moon while waving dead chickens over the carcasses of ancient PCs.  Once that is done, things will work as they always have.
> 
> (Hint:  search for DontZap)



Not really, if OP use latest ports. Magic is now more powerfull and little more
complicated to make:


```
Option "XkbOptions" "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"
```


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