Re: So very close, but so frustrating...

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Fri, 2009-10-02 at 20:57 +0100, Steve wrote:
> Dan Williams wrote:
> > Correct; I may just get bored enough today triaging bugs to go implement
> > DUN in 0.8.  That opens up a huge number of cellphones, which will
> > inevitably lead to even more bugs since there's much more phone
> > variation than in the relatively small data card space.  Oh well; it
> > would help a lot of people out.
> >   
> It seems odd to be replying here using DUN via bluetooth to my phone 
> from version 0.7.0.100... that said, having to tell Blueman that my 
> phone has DUN capabilities every time I want to connect is klunky - and 
> any improvement there would certainly be appreciated.  My objective is 
> to be able to just turn on my netbook just-about anywhere and access my 
> secure email without much thought about how I'm connected.

Which is why the people doing Blueman might as well have helped out
getting the native NM support up and running in the first place; the
answer at the time was "help get modem-manager working so we can do this
properly", but the Blueman people took the short, hack-for-today route.
While I dont' like that decision, it does make some people's modems work
(but definitely not everyones), and it's not the optimal interface for
making your hardware work for you.

The objective is and always has been to make this all just work and
integrate well in NetworkManager, instead of having yet more tools added
to the mix.

> Aside from issues with phone connectivity, I've experienced a few minor 
> glitches with NetworkManager's OpenVPN support (or maybe VPN support  in 
> general...) For example, today I found that connections to my vpn failed 
> - and on reviewing the client configuration, I found the "VPN" tab 
> missing.  After deleting the configuration and re-entering the details, 
> it worked again... but on trying to export my configuration, it fails 
> "Error: unknown error" - perhaps newer versions resolve this?   I'm also 
> finding the "connect automatically" doesn't reconnect me if I change 
> WAP, or if I wake my netbook from hibernation.

The NM OpenVPN plugin doesn't implement export yet.  After getting
import to work, I moved on to other also-quite-important stuff.  openvpn
export would be a great piece of low-hanging fruit that somebody could
easily develop a patch for, actually.  Any takers?

> I feel as if I'm being an ungrateful user - but it strikes me that solid 
> support for mobile connectivity is the sort of killer-feature that makes 
> or breaks an environment, on a mobile device, from a perspective of 
> productivity. NetworkManager is much better than the command-line, but 
> with what look, to me, like fairly simple improvements... It could be so 
> much better... the obvious goal is to allow a device to seamlessly, 
> automatically, switch between physical networks allowing the user to 
> ignore all details about connectivity and know that the 'best' 
> medium/route will always be used.

Solid support for mobility is definitely a goal we're always improving
on.  Every project needs more help, and NetworkManager is no different.
For my own sob-story, today I spent time fixing a few bugs with
certificate handling, fixing the connection editor retrieving your
secrets/passwords when you edit connections, and reviewing some patches.
I'd hoped to get back to improving the 3G/mobile broadband support
earlier this week, but a bunch of UI stuff had to be done instead.  If I
could clone myself and a some of the others who contribute a lot to the
project, we'd (a) have a more awesome NetworkManager, and (b) get rich
of the patents we'd file for cloning technology.  Oh well.

Dan