hal(5) Standards, Environments, and Macros hal(5)NAMEhal - overview of hardware abstraction layer
DESCRIPTION
The Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) provides a view of the various
hardware attached to a system. This view is updated dynamically as
hardware configuration changes by means of hotplug or other mechanisms.
HAL represents a piece of hardware as a device object. A device object
is identified by a unique identifer and carries a set of key/value
pairs, referred to as device properties. Some properties are derived
from the actual hardware, some are merged from device information files
(.fdi files), and some are related to the actual device configuration.
HAL provides an easy-to-use API through D-Bus. D-Bus is an IPC frame‐
work that, among other features, provides a system-wide message-bus
that allows applications to talk to one another. Specifically, D-Bus
provides asynchronous notification such that HAL can notify other peers
on the message-bus when devices are added and removed, as well as when
properties on a device are changing.
In the Solaris operating system, HAL is supported by a daemon,
hald(1M), and a set of utilities that enable the adding and removing of
devices and the modification of their properties.
SEE ALSOhald(1M), fdi(4)
See the HAL pages, including the HAL specification, under
http://freedesktop.org.
SunOS 5.11 11 Sep 2006 hal(5)
