Re: 56k questions

["Darren Albers" <dalbers gmail com>]

On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 7:12 PM, Jess Bermudes <jbermudes gmail com> wrote:
> First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for their hard work on this
> project, NM is an awesome tool. This post isn't so much a complaint as
> it is feedback and an inquiry, so sorry if it comes off harsh.
>
> I'm an Ubuntu 8.04 user and occasionally I need to use my Dell
> laptop's modem because I am not near any wireless or wired
> connections. After finally getting the drivers up and running, I
> noticed that using a modem in nm is a little awkward. I have two
> options: connect to ppp0 and disconnect from ppp0. I'm trying to
> figure out what was the design decision behind having it that way. I
> feel like I have no real control over my modem when using nm because I
> get no feedback about what my modem is doing. As a recent convert to
> Linux, here's my experience using nm for dialup for the first time:
>
> 1. I press connect to ppp0, nothing happens, so I press it again. I'm
> wondering "hmm, how do I know if it's dialing?" after trying again, a
> few seconds it starts to dial. I think to myself "that was weird, but
> oh well, it's working now"
> 2. After the dialing process and all those classic beeps and boops and
> screeches that we've all come to love have finished, nothing happens.
> The icon of nm stays in the disconnected state (two computers with a
> red [X]) I'm thinking "wait, did it connect or what?"
> 3. I go to the dialup connections menu in nm and see that my 2 choices
> are still "connect to ppp0" and "disconnect from ppp0". I open my
> browser to discover that I do in fact have a connection, but I'm still
> confused.
> 4. When I have concluded the use of the internet, I go to "disconnect
> from ppp0", and once again, I find no indication that it has
> successfully disconnected.
>
> Now, as a little background, I'm a computer science student in
> college, so if it confused me, I'd hate to be in the situation of
> other users. And while some of you may suggest that there are other
> programs out there instead of nm, if nm is the default manager for a
> distro like ubuntu, then making it as transparent to users as possible
> is probably a goal.
>
> I guess what I'd like to see is some sort of feedback from nm during
> the use of dialup connections. Are there technical limitations that
> prevent this, or is it more of a lack of manpower? If I can learn
> about the situation, then perhaps I may be able to contribute to make
> nm just as amazing for dialup as it is for wired/wireless connections.
>
>  - Jess Bermudes
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Ubuntu 8.04 ships with 0.6.6 which does not have dial-up support so I
think you are seeing some Ubuntu specific additions.  If I remember
right what you are seeing is that it just calls the Gnome dialup tools
rather than network manager doing anything which is why NM shows you
as disconnected.  I think version 0.7 of Network Manager will have
much better integrated for modems