Re: 2 questions...

[warlord <warlord MIT EDU>]

Quoting Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>:


> Note that I'm really only considering user/desktop apps here.  We
> shouldn't expect server stuff like Apache to assume no network, since
> the whole point of Apache is that there _is_ a network to serve stuff
> to.  But if somebody has a laptop that's always plugged in, why are they
> using NetworkManager at all right now?

It may not always be plugged in, but it may always be "on some network".  Some
people do live in a situation where there is network connectivity 99% of the
time -- sometimes wired, sometimes wireless.  NM is perfect when you live in
this situation and want a nice GUI tool to help you when you move around from
one SSID to another.

> If they use NetworkManager, they must reasonably expect their network
> not to be around at various points, and therefore the applications have
> to deal with that case.  NetworkManager can't babysit every application,
> and the way things get fixed is, in some cases, to cause their
> assumptions to be invalid and have people yell a lot.

Nah, I reasonably expect to have network a vast majority of the time; I don't
want to have to act like I don't when I know I do.  Not having network is by
far the exception, not the rule, so IMHO life should be optimized for dealing
with the common (have network) case.

It just so happens that 802.11 is more prevalent than 802.3.

> The way it is right now isn't necessarily the best way.  Its a
> historical artifact that stuff on Unix/Linux _assumes_ a network is
> always present, and now that people run laptops we get to lobotomize all
> sorts of stupid desktop applications that don't expect stuff to drop out
> from underneath them.  Which is perfectly valid situation if you've got
> a laptop and are using wireless.  I don't think it's egocentric at all,
> given the way things are going and the way people are now using
> computers compared to 5 years ago.

I dont know... I'm certainly using my laptop in the same way I've been using
laptops for the last 10 years.  I've always been mobile, trans-continental,
wanting to work offline and online.  The only difference between now and 10
years ago is that back then it was all 802.3 and now it's mostly 802.11.

NM is definitely a step in the right direction, but I wish I didn't 
have to lose
functionality to gain what NM provides.  For example, I've spent the last four
years using wlan-ng with the wlan-ng scanning scripts.  Those are 
WONDERFUL! During bootup (or after resume-from-suspect) it will scan 
and connect to any of
the preconfigured networks.  It starts the network at the "right place" in the
boot sequence and everything is happy.  The only downside is the lack of a
pretty UI to control it all.

> > Why should wireless networks be treated differently than wired networks
> > in terms of when they are started?
>
> Arguably they shouldn't, but it just happens that NetworkManager does
> start wired networks right now.  But that's not intentional, just an
> oversight.  When we get a sane system services and configuration
> framework, then we can start stuff like wireless earlier too.
> NetworkManager breaks horribly for the "network mounted /usr" case right
> now too, but do you reasonably suspect people that have network mounted
> critical partitions to be running NetworkManager?  (note that you
> physically can't, because dbus, hal, and glib reside on /usr)

Okay, so it's an oversight that wireless is started later, not an 
oversight that
wired is started earlier?  That makes me feel better!  :)

I do wish that NM, hal, and dbus could be started early enough to handle a
network-mounted /usr.  I've certainly lived in a situation where I've had a
network-mounted /home!

> > Why should NM work differently than the original network scripts in terms of
> > when networks are started?  Sure, NM gives you the ability to connect to
> > different wireless networks.  This is a good thing..  But it still 
> > starts too
> > late.
>
> Frankly, because the network scripts suck for mobile users.  They are
> not automatic, which was the whole point of NetworkManager.  Part of it
> was also that there was no use-case we could think of that required an
> early start for the mobile user.  Now that you've found one, we have to
> go through and think of how to deal with it in a useable manner.  But
> that doesn't automatically mean falling back to exactly the way things
> were done before...

LOL.  Yes, those scripts do..  As I said, I've been using wlan-ng for 
years and
it's mostly what I want, except for the lack of proper UI for non-root
configuration.  I really want NG to be as good as (and much better than) those
old wlan-ng scripts, especially since I have a new laptop that doesn't use a
prism card ;)

> Dan

Thanks.

-derek