Re: consolidation of network applet/services for gnome 2.10

[Seth Nickell <snickell gmail com>]

> an editor for the system config files. This is the point I was trying to
> get across back in the discussion about g-s-t, is that the approach
> we're taking results in not really having a config file editor tool (or
> config files, for that matter) at all. 

And even if/when we do (for example if NM is expanded to support
static IP addresses), as Carlos pointed out, we shouldn't use existing
distro specific conf files but should make one specifically for NM.

> A writeup on netapplet/netdaemon and how they work would be handy, I'm
> not sure if it's more a g-s-t type of thing or more a NetworkManager
> type of thing or a third approach.

In terms of technical approach, I see two major axes of difference
between NetworkManager and g-s-t's backends:

1) g-s-t tends not ito mplement policy but assumes that the underlying
distro will manage policy, whereas NetworkManager is designed to do
everything automatically (i.e. its mostly policy ;-)

2) g-s-t uses high-level networking tools/scripts to affect change
whereas NetworkManager uses lowerlevel stuff like ifconfig to affect
change.

So after reading through the netapplet codebase, my impression is that
netapplet is like NetworkManager on axis 1, and like g-s-t on axis 2.
netdaemon uses existing higher-level distro-specific networking layers
to enact its own policy. Of course, NM ends up pushing a lot more
policy than netapplet because it is geared toward automated control of
networking rather than manual user control.

-Seth