[Mageia-dev] Drakxnet, drakroam and Draknetcenter : let's fix it or throw it.

[Maarten Vanraes]

Op maandag 01 augustus 2011 11:42:26 schreef Thomas Lottmann:
> Hello,
> 
> I should have written this mail much sooner, but finally, I am totally,
> completely and starting to be hatefully fed up of these tools.
> 
> The Mandriva/Mageia tools that manage the network on computers,
> especially the wireless networks are completely dysfunctional. While the
> Network Center does not seem to even communicate with the system tools
> to know what is happening during the link setup, it does not
> auto-refresh network lists properly.
> 
> Since 2010.1 now even mixes up itself in it's own network scripts (the
> ones stored in wireless.d). This maxes it wrongly detect numerous
> wireless points (he seen WPA2 Enterperise hotspots as opened or WEP, or
> more nerving, becomes incapable or storing the right authentication
> information). A tool that breaks itself is a complete shame!
> 
> The GUI is also appalling. Despite it's numerous possibilities, it is a
> mess and 60% of it cannot be used by something else than the system or a
> network expert.
> 
> The code itself is undocumented and it extremely difficult to read.
> 
> These tools are getting really bad and not working properly anyway since
> a long time now. So either we fix it and improve it (recoding?), either
> we definitely switch to Network Manager. I am ready to participate if
> necessary (despite my lack of competence), but I do not want to see
> these tools 'as is' on my computer anymore, and no longer want to see
> these issues that down Mageia's reputation in comparison to other
> popular projects here such as Arch, Fedora or Ubuntu, who do have proper
> tools delivered by default.
> 
> This is not the first time I complain about this tool. We should not
> leave this unchanged. It is far too annoying and pushing to so much loss
> of time.
> 
> Yours sincerely,.
> 
> Thomas.


personally, alot of problems could likely be attributed to using all those 
several of those apps together.

imho, the network tools should be redesigned a bit, according to good 
usability, but mostly, either they should all be nicely integrated which each 
other, or we should just have one that does all nicely.

personally, i find the netapplet the best working and use that exclusively to 
avoid issues.

but sadly, even netapplet is far from complete.

as some kind of start, we should have an app that exists in drakconf, but also 
accessible via an applet, but again, perhaps we should have multiple applets, 
with one for each connection.

eg: a wifi access link, 2 network connections (one of which goes to internet), 
and 3 openvpn tunnels (as an example) it would even be better, if bluetooth 
networking could also be included. (this would also allow for multiple 
internet connections at a later time with some advanced routing)

at the same time, people could tell at a glance if they accidentally use more 
than one internet access method.

about openvpn, some of those are user-related (even though they have effects on 
global routing), especially password related things, personally, i think it'd 
be better if these can only be controlled through the applet by the user it's 
from (with perhaps an option to allow any user to control this too)

again with openvpn, it would be usefull if there was some kind of way to know 
it's not only running, but also if it's essentially active or not, and if it's 
used as a internet gateway.

These are some things which i have noticed over the years of using it and 
listening to end-user problems.


perhaps the above can be used as a starting point for a usability scheme.

Thomas, since you feel this strongly, are you willing to spend some time on 
this?