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

[Marcello Anni]

> You are right in several points, but... :-)
> 
> Le 01/08/2011 15:59, Thierry Vignaud a écrit :
> > On 1 August 2011 15:29, Thomas Lottmann<skipercooker at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >> The other main issue I see si that Drakxnet is coded in Perl and uses a 
lot
> >> of perl scripts, like the drakxtools. This makes it hard to maintain, and 
to
> >> improve.
> > That's just your own POV.
> > Not the POV of maintainers.
> 
> Are there other maintainers for this tool than it's creators or 
> long-time maintainers? This is not only my POV, but also what I have 
> heard from a variety of people since the time I participate a little. 
> Anyway...
> 
> >> I know it works fine for several people. Personally, I am often having
> >> issues because it's disconnects on it's own,
> > This has nothing to do with drakconnect that don't handle that.
> > If the network disconnected, that's the issue between the routers,
> > the network, the kernel, ....
> > and no longer sees any networks when it should.
> > which points to either network issue or kernel driver issue, not 
drakconnect.
> 
> Other people not using Mageia do not get as often disconnected as me 
> when using public hotspots. Mageia wireless tools seem to have more 
> difficulty to connect and keep the connections to hotspots that have a 
> low (not bad, low) quality signal, while Windows keeps connected, or, 
> quickly reconnects automatically.
> 
> Meanwhile, I have to reconnect manually and, more frustrating, it seems 
> the wireless utility sometime attempts to reconnect automatically, but I 
> can't clearly know.
> 
> The other bizarre thing I often see is when the hotspots he sees fall 
> from 35 to 0 (or 1, the hotspot he's tryign to connect). This is not 
> normal, I have not observed this NM, Windows or Mac OS X tools.
> 
> >
> >> Then it has difficulty  reconnecting.
> > Same, reconnecting is the job of dhcp-client, ifplugd and the like.
> > Not drakconnect's job.
> 
> I can't tell. I can only observe and I do not invent what I describe 
> (and have already described in the past). :-)
> 
> >> Windows, Fedora and Ubuntu's wireless tools work absolutely smoothly at 
my
> >> school. And now, other people testing Mageia as school are having the 
same
> >> issues I have. This is frustrating and I can assure you these home-made
> >> network tools have to be improved and fixed.
> > Well, Fedora tool (really NM) has its own bugs.
> True.
> > And I'm pretty sure people who've used MS, Apple or whatever OS/tool
> > they're used to, have also encountered issues
> True. But these issues are less evident to find apparently, and do not 
> affect that much user experience.
> 
> When a user wants to connect to a wireless hotspot, he should just click 
> connect, enter his IDs and it should work fluently. If it is often the 
> case with Mageia tools with a personal hotspot and when you're next to 
> it, it is not always the case when you use it everyday, and, sadly, 
> other tools do better and have a more stable and smooth wireless  
> connectivity, even if they also encournter issues. Their issues are not 
> that much affecting user experience like the ones I have described.
> >> If you want to, I can attempt to make a list of the isses and 
incoherencies
> >> I find, although they are not hard to see.
> > Indeed, please just fill in _several_ bugs (one report per issue)
> > against drakx-net
> 
> I will do one report for each issue I find in drakxnet, with as much 
> details as possible, yes. I shall also do a video capture of the issue 
> if it can help. this will take me a lot of time, but I will do it.
> 
> >> But as I mentionned earlier, this
> >> is a tool that is hard to maintain, and I cannot learn perl right now.
> > That's just _your_ personnal though, not his maintainer's.
> > aka "this is a tool that is hard to maintain" really means "you would not 
be
> > able to maintain it"
> Right.
> >> If NetworkManager is easier to maintain and works fine, then I think it 
can
> >> be a better solution. Just offering or trying to find solutions, because
> >> this tool seriously does not work properly here.
> > it has its own flaws too...
> Yes, but it does not confuses itself with it's own configuration files. 
> Clearly, all programs can have flaws, but sincerely, it is not working 
> well in Mageia and is not pleasant to use. Otherwise I would not report 
> again about it. ;-)
> 

btw, i think ALL mageia tools must be redesigned to match the medium usability 
level of nowadays... 


cheers,
Marcello