RFC: Kernel changes that may affect desktops

[Kevin Kofler]

Matthew Garrett wrote:
> I've been working with David Zeuthen to flesh out proper desktop support
> for this, and we're now at the point where there's not a great deal of
> code to write to get this working cleanly. Unfortunately this requires a
> certain level of integration between the kernel and the desktop -
> something has to prompt the user about unmounting the device and then
> trigger the completion of the undock. The kernel still handles the
> actual ACPI execution, but policy now lives in the desktop.

What changes are needed to the desktop?

The big problem we've been facing integrating new features of core system
services into KDE so far was lack of documentation. What do we need to
change?

If this will be all handled within DeviceKit, then this will come by itself
with the Solid DeviceKit backend ltinkl is working on, but if we need to
add some desktop interaction for it, we have to know what it should be.

> Once this code is ready I'd like to change the kernel defaults to allow
> this. The problem is that this will cause a reduction in functionality
> for desktops that don't have this integration. How should this kind of
> situation be handled?

You have to tell us what we need to change in KDE and give us the necessary
time to adapt, even if it means you have to wait for Fedora 13 to push this
change.

        Kevin Kofler