Steve Langasek wrote:
>I can't find a way to disable it using just the media_check_enabled flag,
>but adding the following to /etc/hal/fdi/policy/preferences.fdi overrides
>the use of hald-addon-storage for my particular CD-ROM:
>
> <device>
> <match key="info.product" string="SD-R2512">
> <merge key="info.addons" type="strlist"></merge>
> </match>
> </device>
>
>That means hal will never be notified of media changes on that device at
>all.
That would be quite good enough for me.
After an exceptional amount of fiddling (hal seems to be very picky about its
configuration files, and it doesn't report when it can't read them -- that
should
be logged, and it's not, and I filed a bug) I seem to have gotten it working.
<device>
<match key="info.product" string="HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8162B">
<merge key="info.addons" type="strlist"></merge>
</match>
</device>
Now it spins up the drive when hal starts, for about 3 seconds, but then
stops and behaves itself.
This workaround seriously needs to be documented. I'm fairly adept, so I
also managed to figure out where the script to restart hal is (NOT obvious),
and that I had to match the string to a string in lshal (slightly more
obvious),
but I doubt an average user, even a technically adept one, would ever make it
through this without help.
And it is a *very* annoying problem. My CD-ROM drive doesn't just spin up, it
spins up to top speed and stays there, which it doesn't even do when playing an
audio CD or DVD. Doing this constantly is actually a *lot* more wear and tear
than the drive is designed to receive; it's quite loud enough to be audibly
obnoxious, as well.
I think this is the workaround for a lot of similar bugs (#360554, perhaps?)
and
we already have two users reporting the problem (me and Steve) so
this should be documented in README.Debian or somewhere else in
/usr/share/doc/hal. If this is documented prominently, I think the bug can be
closed, because the "real bug" is indeed in the hardware or the kernel
and may be very difficult or impossible to work around. (FYI, hal is one of
the
least documented programs I've ever seen.)
Suggested text, which I place in the public domain:
------
Is hal keeping your CD-ROM or disk drive spinning constantly? This is a
known problem related to the behavior of particular hardware. You can
stop this behavior by disabling hald-addon-storage for that specific drive
(this will also disable automounting and the other features of hal for that
drive, of course).
To do so, run 'lshal | more' and find the entry describing the troublesome
drive -- you may have to guess which one it is, but it will probably have
"DVD" or "CD" or something recognizable in it. Mine was identifiable by
the line:
info.product = 'HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8162B'
As root, create a file /etc/hal/fdi/policy/dont-wake-drive.fdi containing the
following text (replacing the string "HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8162B" with the one
for
your drive):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="info.product" string="HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8162B">
<merge key="info.addons" type="strlist"></merge>
</match>
</device>
</deviceinfo>
Then, as root, restart hal as follows:
/etc/dbus-1/event.d/20hal force-reload
Your drive should spin down in a few seconds.
-------------
--
Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Insert famous quote here]
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