Comment 8 for bug 16170

Hi,

I have this problem as well. My symptoms are as follows:

1) boot up the system.
1.1) switch to text console by CTRL+ALT+F1, log in, do ps -ale.
     note that I see lots of 10-hal.dev and 20-hal.hotplug and udev processes.
These last for about 2 minutes.
2) on graphical login screen (gdm) CTRL-ALT-F7, log in
3) Gnome starts, gives me brown background with panels top + bottom, and after a
little while presents "failed to initialize HAL" message.
4) if I wait until the 10-hal.dev and 20-hal.hotplug processes have stopped,
Gnome comes up normally (without logging out)
5) If I wait for a few minutes before logging in to gdm, then Gnome comes up OK
the first time.

I have two CDROM drives installed on the same cable, problem happens without
having a CD in the drive...

I'm looking forward to having this fixed, as I installed Ubuntu for a friend who
is a computer newbie, and its driving him nuts... leaving him unimpressed.