On Tue, 2004-11-30 at 13:14 -0500, Darrin Thompson wrote: > On Tue, 2004-11-30 at 12:43 -0500, David Zeuthen wrote: > > I'm all for improving the situation with around auto configuration of > > hardware, but with all due respect, I think you guys are trying to solve > > the symptom, not the real problem. In my view you really want the X > > server to be able to export an API for software higher up the stack > > (GNOME, KDE, etc.) to configure the X server. You also want to > > reconfigure it while it's running. It seems to me, that putting in an > > mediator, for basically writing out configuration files, is not the best > > API for doing this. I could be wrong though. Ideally the X server > > wouldn't even touch hardware before someone used that API to say "Add > > monitor, Add input device, blah blah". > > > > Elektra does not prevent any of what you describe. > Not sure, I see that the Elektra API is key/value based and the only two types supported appears to be UTF-8 strings and Blobs. Perhaps it would be useful with other fundamental data types on grounds of type safety. > The current implementation does appear to assume (I've not tried it) > that the current X config should map to neatly to key/value pairs in a > similarly shaped namespace. The namespace of those pairs seems to be a > sticking point. Seems that once you separate input config from monitor > config at the file level, keeping them together as "X" config doesn't > make so much sense anymore. > The API I'd like to see the X server export would definitely include methods/facilities that you cannot express in terms of 'set one more more keys atomically'. For instance, shouldn't the X server expose a method Degauss() if the hardware is capable of degaussing a monitor? (locking down who and what is permitted to invoke Degauss() is another matter entirely - I suggest that people take a lot at D-BUS and some of the policy you can apply there; e.g. only allow console user to do it. In fact, it might be too dangerous to expose such a method as repeated use might damage the hardware, but you get the point) Cheers, David
