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

[D.Morgan]

On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 8:21 PM, Maarten Vanraes
<maarten.vanraes at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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?
>

AFAIK this is not on mageia 2 specs, maybe you should not ask ppl if
they have time to work on things not on specs, and try to focus on
specs.
We have a lot to do already don't you think ?

Maybe it could be nice to improve net_applet instead of doing "yet an
other software for network".
I used some other distro for years and now i use mageia. Honnestly i
miss nothing ( from a normal user POV )