I happened to compile x-server without HAL support. Though I had hald, dbus installed on my system, I wasn't aware I'd need the development header files as well. Autoconf just ran over it and I didn't pay attention to checking for DBUS... no checking for HAL... no In consequence the x-server hat no HAL support, but its Xorg.0.log still wrote: (II) The server relies on HAL to provide the list of input devices. If no devices become available, reconfigure HAL or disable AllowEmptyInput. Trying to get HAL to work I traced for hours in the wrong domains (access rights etc.) until I recognized HAL wasn't compiled into the x-server. In case of not having HAL compiled into the x-server I'd expect it not to print "The server relies on HAL" in Xorg.0.log.
I pushed a fix to master as commit 24383056d0513cc588cee5cee78f1cba2c0fbe89. Now, when AllowEmptyInput is enabled, no input deviced were found and HAL was diabled at configure time it writes: HAL is disabled and no input devices were configured. Try disabling AllowEmptyInput. I’ll leave this open pending a cherry-pick to 1.5 and any comments on or improvments to the new message.
If this hasn't been backported to 1.5 by now, it probably won't be. We're on 1.9 anyway, so no big deal.
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