DeviceKit is a modular hardware abstraction layer designed for use in Linux systems that is designed to simplify device management and replace the current monolithic Linux HAL.
DeviceKit includes the ability to enumerate system devices and send notifications when hardware is added or removed from the computer system.
In May 2008, HAL developer David Zeuthen announced his intention to deprecate HAL, mainly because of its complexity and redundancy with other libraries in the Linux environment.
[3] The only missing part in those libraries would be a centralized service to enumerate existing devices, signal adding/removal of devices and merging and classifying available hardware information in one point.
[4] Ubuntu 9.10 replaced some of the old HAL features with DeviceKit and functionality from udev.