hal-info 20081013-0ubuntu3 (i386 binary) in ubuntu intrepid

 HAL provides an abstract view on hardware.
 .
 This abstraction layer is simply an interface that makes it possible to
 add support for new devices and new ways of connecting devices to the
 computer, without modifying every application that uses the device.
 It maintains a list of devices that currently exist, and can provide
 information about those upon request.
 .
 This package contains various device information files (also known
 as .fdi files) for the hal package.
 These fdi files contain additional information that help to describe the
 hardware more detailed, such as suspend/resume quirks for laptops, music
 player or photo camera types etc.