hal: hal (The HAL Hardware Abstraction Layer) hal: hal: HAL is a piece of software that provides a view of the various hal: hardware attached to a system. HAL keeps detailed metadata for each hal: piece of hardware and provides hooks so that system and desktop hal: software can react to changes in the hardware configuration (such as hal: the insertion of a DVD, or a USB flash memory stick). Users in the hal: "plugdev" or "cdrom" group will be able to use such devices on the hal: desktop without the need to mount/umount them manually. hal: hal: For more info, see: http://hal.freedesktop.org/