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

[Steve <sjh_ubuntu shic co uk>]

Dan Williams wrote:
> 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.
>   
Ah, ha - some politics. :)
At the moment, I fall into the camp that's glad to have a (partial) 
solution now - even if it's badly engineered and with lots of caveats.
I do understand where you're coming from.
> 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?
>   
Nice attempt at coercion... Erm - I'm not refusing, but don't hold your 
breath. I've lots of other stuff on my own to-do list that is more 
urgent for me.  I mentioned it mainly out of surprise... I like the idea 
of a save/restore configuration - but think it would be most effective 
if it covered all configuration - including VPNs, DSLs and WiFi.  Having 
found the effort had been taken to provide the UI for the fine-grained 
approach, I didn't expect the functionality to be missing. :)
> 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.
That sounds like good progress to me - even without cloning technology. ;)

One idea that has occurred - on a more general basis than my specific 
user-oriented problem - relates to how NetworkManager establishes 
connectivity when multiple connections are viable.  Choosing the 
'fastest' might not always be appropriate...  I'm thinking about these 
scenarios:

1. Currently I'm in-range of two Wi-Fi routers to which I can 
authenticate - each with an independent broadband connection... it would 
be great if I both could be used simultaneously... of course, with a 
mobile device, the viable connections would change over time - and, 
ideally, the transition from one Wi-Fi router to the next would be 
seamless - and wouldn't even cause tcp connections to drop... assuming, 
of course, movement is constrained to an area with sufficiently many 
accessible Wi-Fi routers.  Perhaps this is an issue with the underlying 
Wi-Fi support?
2. If multiple routers can be accessed, it would be great if the 
bandwidth of these routers could be combined, for example, when 
downloading a large file.
3. Cost seems a reasonable criteria to consider, too.  For example, I 
know my mobile has a 1Gb fair-use policy; that I have to pay by the hour 
at some hot-spots and that my home router is un-metered, but slow.  It 
would be great if configuration of my interfaces somehow embraced these 
concerns - and, perhaps, offered me options about the level of resources 
I'm willing to consume.

I wonder if there are any plans to take development in these directions?