[Mageia-dev] Mageia 3 specifications

[Christian Lohmaier]

Hi Olav, *,

On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Olav Vitters <olav at vitters.nl> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 10:44:31PM +0200, Guillaume Rousse wrote:
>> Le 05/06/2012 16:20, Olav Vitters a écrit :
>> >Also, with latest NetworkManager, it seems you can do pretty advanced
>> >network configurations (lacks UI).

lacks UI part is probably the most problematic issue today.

>> >However, seems that loads of Mageia users have issues with
>> >NetworkManager [...]

>> Approximatively 50% of those problems come from the coexistence with
>> drakxtools and sysinit, conflicting for the control of the
>> interface, rather than actual problems in NM code.

Doesn't match my personal problems where I can only successfully setup
a connection when I use a combination of both, because of the
abovementioned lack of UI for "basic" (or better: essential)
configuration item, namely setting CRDA comain.

> Ah ok, but shouldn't that all be fixed now that the patch is back to
> make NetworkManager properly ignore stuff that it should ignore?

Nope. Network manager needs to have the featues that are currently
lacking, but that net-applet did provide.

* Setting CRDA domain
* Allowing to setup static IP before setting up a connection with DHCP first
* Leave hostname alone unless explicitly asked for changing it. (there
is no option to disable it, so when using dhcp NM will change your
hostname when the router suggests one, rendering your x-session
unusable for administrative tools that then no longer can connect to
the user's X-session)
* allow to configure wireless netorks without those networks being
available. You cannot preconfigure an access point without it actually
be in reach. With preconfiguring I mainly mean assign the
passphrase/authentification options.

> But drakxtools was
> more advanced IIRC, so first NetworkManager needs to get more advanced,
> more documentation, etc.

NM in the beta iso was a horrible experience, and now it halfway works
in the release, but my sympathies still are with drakxtools..

> All bugs above are really server like things. I thought drakxtools still
> was better at setting up Wifi; and I think that is more important to get
> right than vlan/bridging/etc.

I absolutely agree. drakxtools didn't have any problem with open, WEP,
WPA, be it with pre-shared keys or enterprise-style. Adding a VPN
tunnel was easy as well (apart from the bug that the tun-device had to
be added to the firewall manually, thankfully only once).

Only bug with netapplet/drakx tools is that it doesn't properly handle
static IP configuration after having connected to a dhcp network. Have
to manually disconnect and reconnect to make use of static IP. Didn't
have chance yet to check with NM...

ciao
Christian