It turned out the install file is in the binary package (but still not in CVS). The user hal was not created because there was no "storage" group on my system (I do not update the /etc/group everytime a new filesystem package shows up):

# /usr/sbin/useradd -c 'HAL daemon' -u 82 -g hal -G floppy,optical,storage -d '/' -s /bin/false hal
useradd: unknown group storage

And because of the redirect of output *and error* messages to nirvana (&>/dev/null) this message passed totally unnoticed. A simple redirect of the output only (> /dev/null) may serve better here.

(Now I wonder which important messages slipped unnoticed elsewhere.)

It screws up if any of the groups are missing.
I get

# /usr/sbin/useradd -c 'HAL daemon' -u 82 -g hal -G floppy,optical,storage -d '/' -s /bin/false hal
useradd: unknown group floppy