HAL requires the Linux kernel 2.6, D-BUS, glib (this dep will be dropped soon) and a recent version of linux-hotplug and udev. For the GUI application at least python, pygtk and pygnome is required.

                 * Install <a href="http://dbus.freedesktop.org">D-BUS</a> 
                 * Install <a href="http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/">udev</a> 
                 * Checkout the HAL source from git: 
                                         * git clone git://git.freedesktop.org/git/hal 
                 * Configure HAL: `./autogen.sh` 
                                         * Make sure that your `PKG''CONFIG''PATH` contains `dbus-1.pc` and `dbus-glib-1.pc` 
                                         * Use the same prefix (--prefix) as used for installing D-BUS 
                 * Build HAL: `make` 
                 * Install HAL: `make install` (as root) 
                                         * Even if you are going to hack on HAL you need to do `make install` 
                 * (re)start the system messagebus (D-BUS) 
                                         * `/etc/init.d/messagebus restart` on some distros 
                 * As root, start the HAL daemon in a separate window: hald. For debugging use option --daemon=no 
                 * You can now run hal-device-manager or lshal 
                                         * Make sure `PYTHONPATH` containes the path to dbus.py 

Happy hacking! Have a look at the TODO. Send feedback to hal@lists.freedesktop.org.