Re: Hotplug can configure XFree86

[David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>]

> Well, things that hotplug can't currently guess (as used in an
> X config)

There are lots of things, and some of them _could_ in some
cases be autodetected ... or at least old values saved and
reused (likely after sanity checking).  In particular, don't many
of the newer monitors have ways to identify themselves?

> - monitor type
>   (which lets you get the available resolutions and depth)
> - users's preferred resolution
> - users's preferred color depth
> - pointer type (for non USB, etc.)
> 
> I realize I have a biased opinion, but I don't think that walking
> the user through a minimal X reconfiguration (as opposed to a
> completely automated change) is a bad thing on graphics HW change.

I don't either, and in fact I'm convinced that there are some
configuration actions that deserve user intervention ... even
at the level of popping up some dialogue on the user's X11
desktop, and presenting notices (and ideally actions)!

But on the other hand, I also believe that should be avoided
whenever possible.  So for example in this case, I'd rather
see a "looks like you have <this/> new configuration, right?"
dialogue rather than doing twenty questions.  (Though to be
sure, the last few times I had to do the xf86config-ish game
the questions were at least ones that mortals might answer!)
And sometimes that dialogue would be able to time out
without demanding input...

I'm making a fairly general point here, which I hope most
folk will agree with:  Linux desktop systems should do a
lot more "automatic detection" of hardware ("hotplugging")
than they've traditionally done, and demand a lot less user
input on configuration changes.  It's been getting better in
the past few years ... and I hope it'll continue !!  Likewise,
I'll hope that the distros will converge on at least the tools
in those areas, if not all the policies they use.  That's harder.

- Dave



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