Re: Is NetworkManager Single User only?

["Darren Albers" <dalbers gmail com>]

NetworkManager is for single-user systems (Mostly laptops) that change
roam networks frequently.  If a system is a desktop that happens to
have a wireless card but never moves you would be better off just
starting wpa_supplicant on boot before ifup.

This is the description from the networkmanager webpage:
"Networking on Linux right now is painful for the mobile desktop user,
especially in comparison to other operating systems. A laptop user
should never need to use the command line or configuration files to
manage their network; it should "Just Work" as automatically as
possible and intrude as little as possible into the user's workflow.
NetworkManager attempts to make networking invisible. When moving into
areas you've been before, NetworkManager automatically connects to the
last network the user chose to connect to. Likewise, when back at the
desk, NetworkManager will switch to the faster, more reliable wired
network connection."

As for the confusion for users, that is the question that the Ubuntu
devs have been struggling with and why they have always chosen to ship
NetworkManager as an option.  Right now the Ubuntu package for Dapper
doesn't even touch interfaces that have anything in
/etc/network/interfaces to avoid this confusion.  I suspect that what
most distros will do is consider NetworkManager to be a laptop option
and install it whenever they detect a laptop.

There are a couple of other network applets in development that
support wpa that might be better for a non-mobile multi-user system
such as wireless applet:
http://www.bitron.ch/software/wireless-applet.php
or wifi-radar but none come close to the flexibilty of NetworkManager
for us mobile users.

On 3/12/06, Eli Criffield <elicriffield gmail com> wrote:
> When using a wifi + a key, network manager won't connect to a network
> until you login and unlock the gnome-keyring. Unless I'm mistaken this
> means no networking until I login to the console, or someone logs in
> else who knows the wifi key.
>
> Doesn't this kill the multi-user ability of the system? The system
> can't take any incoming connections, logins, or otherwise until
> someone logs to the console.
>
> What would NetworkManager do with a multiseat system with many people
> logged into the console?
>
> The solution would be if your running a multi-user system don't use
> NetworkManger. This just leads to more Linux confusion. Say ubuntu
> includes NetworkManager but fedora doesn't because its not multi-user
> friendly. Now we have yet another thing that you can't say "Linux does
> it like this".
>
> Couldn't Network Manager be more like a front end to wpa_supplicant.
> It seems there is a lot of duplicate to wpa_supplicant and network
> manager and NetworkManager switches back and forth between using
> wpa_supplicant and not.  Wouldn't it be easier extend and "Hallifiy"
> wpa_supplicant and add a applet, then to duplicate a lot of
> functionality and be switching back and forth from using
> wpa_supplicant and not.
>
> Just my two cents.
>
> Eli Criffield
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