Re: A comment on NetworkManager

[Gene Heskett <gene heskett verizon net>]

Matthew Saltzman wrote:
> On Fri, 12 May 2006, Gene Heskett wrote:
[snip]
> > > > > >
> > > > > $ rpm -q --file /usr/bin/nm-applet
> > > > > NetworkManager-gnome-0.6.0-3
> > > > Ok, I have this:
> > > > [root diablo ~]# rpm -q --file /usr/bin/nm-applet
> > > > NetworkManager-gnome-0.6.2-2.fc5
> > > >
> > > > Now, pray tell, how is it we use this?
> > >
> > > ermm. Just run it.
> > >
> > > If you really have never run this before, it probably explains you 
> > > poor experience with NM :)
> > AFAIK its never been run here.  And ATM wlan0 has started working, so 
> > I believe I'll let this puppy continue an un-interrupted nap until 
> > such time as I get home again & find I need to putz with it.
> >
> > > I agree though, documentation telling you to run this would have 
> > > helped.
> > Is there a manpage (thats a stupid question obviously, but to stay in 
> > character I had to ask), or was that like the decal I saw on the 
> > tailgate of a late model dodge pickup dressed up with a daytona style 
> > wing on the back of the box, the decal saying "Attitude sold 
> > separately"?  The driver obviously had one, it was already showing 
> > signs of participation in contact sports.
>
> In FC5, nm-applet is configured to run by defaut in the GNOME desktop. 
> It doesn't show up in the taksbar unless you "service NetworkManager 
> start", but you shouldn't need to do anything else if you did a 
> scratch install of FC5 and created your userid from scratch.  If you 
> kept your old desktop configs, then you do have to run it once.  On 
> subsequent logins, it should restart by itself, at least in GNOME.  (I 
> tend to recreate my userid when I install new OS versions just so I 
> can see what new destop features have been enabled.).
Humm, I immediately on the install, the the DISPLAY to KDE, but that 
still looked and acted like gnome, so a couple of days later I found I 
could download switchdesk and did so, and ran it to switch to KDE, at 
which point an X restart actually did get me the whole KDE environment.  
And I've never switched back.  Just the bit about hiding the terminal 3 
layers down in the gnome menu's was enough to make me run for higher ground.

So I expect that the nm_applet has been run once, maybe...  The default 
networking at install time was being done by /etc/init.d/network, so at 
that point NM had never been run.  And as I switched to the full kde 
shortly thereafter, I really do have serious doubts it has ever been run.

Does it create a file someplace on first run that I could check for its 
existence?
> And, yes it would be helpful to have something in the docs that 
> explains how to get started if it isn't all set up for you.  The 
> README has sections "Theory of Operation" and "Structure", but no 
> novice would glean any useful information from it.
The only thing I got from that was confused.  Ditto Rosanna's tome after 
page 3, not running gnome, from there on it makes little sense if you 
are not a gnome fan.

--
Cheers, Gene