On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 16:40 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote: > Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > >> Sorry, Rahul, you have lost me here. > >> When I say that NM waits until the user logs in > >> I mean that NetworkManager does not connect me to my AP > >> until I login. > > > > Again, you are confusing between NM and nm-applet. > > I don't think so. > I am using the term NetworkManager - as I think most people do - > to mean "NM and any associated programs which it may start". > > >> Therefore any application that requires me to be connected > >> has to wait until I login. > >> This doesn't worry me particularly, but it does puzzle me. > >> > >> I am asking the reason for this delay. > > > > I believe I already answered that. NM was initially designed to manage > > wireless networks easily where it makes more sense to connect after you > > login. Refer > > > > http://www.redhat.com/magazine/003jan05/features/networkmanager/ > > Thanks for that reference, which looks pretty good at a quick first glance. > > I guess I start from a different point to yourself and the NM developer(s). > I and my family use WiFi on laptops in my house, > to connect to the desktop connected to the internet. > Occasionally I try to access the internet from a WiFi "hotspot" > but my experience in Ireland is that this is rarely as simple as it sounds. > (Last time I tried in a pub here it turned out that they wanted me to pay > the equivalent of several pints of beer.) > But 99% of the time we are using laptops to connect to a fixed AP. > > In other words, for me WiFi is simply a replacement for ethernet. > I suspect that is the case for a large majority of WiFi users. > > In fact, for people like me - which as I say I suspect is most users - > the standard network service would be fine if it worked. > It used to work reasonably well under Redhat-9 (and earlier) > but it has never worked properly under Fedora, for me. > > But it seems to me that it should be easy enough to cater for all users, > by having a setting in some /etc/NM.conf which will allow NM to start > with a specific connection before anyone logs in > _if that is what one wants_, > or if not requires the user to authenticate before connection. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs/F9Common#networkmanager-static > >> Perhaps if there was some minimal documentation for NM this might be > >> clear. > > > > Perhaps if you will volunteer to contribute, it would have been done by > > now. If you want to wait for someone else to do the work, it is going to > > be done when others find time and interest to do it. > > It would be very foolish for me to try to document NM. > I recall with horror a HOWTO written by Karl you-know-who > which was guaranteed to sow utter confusion in any reader. > > But it always surprises me that a developer who must have spent weeks > if not months thinking about his pet project > has never found it useful for him/her-self if no-one else > to set down the basic principles of the project. > I often think one of the advantages of democracy > is that when politicians and bureaucrats are forced to document > what they are doing they usually find that this increases > their own understanding, and so improves their performance. > > Actually, the document you pointed to seems to me > a pretty good starting point. > > But the question it does not answer, and which it is obvious > many users would like an answer to, is: > "What can I do if NetworkManager does not connect me to my AP? > How can I tell where it has broken down? > And what steps can I take to solve the problem?" > > > > > > > > -- Matthew Saltzman Clemson University Math Sciences mjs AT clemson DOT edu http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
