On Mon, Feb 08, 2010 at 10:20:47PM +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote

> However, I'm now trying to get X up and running. "The X Server
> Configuration HOWTO", section 3. "Configuring Xorg" says:
>
>   "Hal comes with many premade device rules, also called policies.
>   These policy files are available in /usr/....../policy. Just find a
>   few that suit your needs most closely and copy them to /etc/...."
>
>   "For example, to get a basic working keyboard/mouse combination, you
>   could copy the following files...
>   /usr/.........../10-input-policy.fdi
>   /usr/.........../10-x11-input.fdi"
>
> . Am I the only person that finds this semantic gibberish? Is there
> any explanation somewhere of what a "policy" aka "device rule" is? What
> is the semantic significance of a "device rule"? What does it mean, to
> "rule a device", or what sort of restrictions are being placed on this
> device?

My solution to simplify Gentoo...

waltdnes@(protected)
sys-libs/pam
sys-apps/dbus
sys-apps/hal

You'll have to do a manual depclean (very carefully) and
revdep-rebuild, but it's worth the effort to purify your Gentoo system.

--
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@(protected)>