Bug#492140: xserver-xorg: xorg.conf generated with no ServerLayout section

[Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org>]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 16:33:46 -0700, Carl Worth wrote:

> After running "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" I get an /etc/X11/xorg.conf
> file that has no ServerLayout section. This means that the two
> InputDevice sections (for keyboard and mouse) that are generated, but
> not referenced by any other section, are ignored by the X server.
> 
> This became more critical to me, (and confusing), when I compiled an
> upstream X server which changes the default behavior when finding
> no InputDevice sections, (previously, it would automatically add
> "kbd" and "mouse" but now it no longer does that---assuming that
> the X server will pick things up from HAL). Now, the fact that the
> server didn't pick things up from HAL is a separate issue.
> 
> The bug here is that the config file really *looks* like it is configuring
> the keyboard and mouse, when it is in fact not. And yes, this is
> quite mystic behavior on the part of the X server, but there it is.
> 
AIUI, the problem is that the AllowEmptyInput option gets enabled by
default in xserver >= 1.5, so the server doesn't look for mouse/kbd
sections in xorg.conf.  It should work fine when AllowEmptyInput is
disabled, as in xserver 1.4.  I think this is a bug in the server, and
the mouse/kbd sections in xorg.conf should be considered even without a
ServerLayout.

Cheers,
Julien