[Mageia-dev] Drakxnet, drakroam and Draknetcenter : let's fix it or throw it.

Tue Aug 2 17:21:09 CEST 2011

> You are right in several points, but... :-)
+> 
+> Le 01/08/2011 15:59, Thierry Vignaud a écrit :
+> > On 1 August 2011 15:29, Thomas Lottmann<skipercooker at gmail.com>  wrote:
+> >> The other main issue I see si that Drakxnet is coded in Perl and uses a 
+lot
+> >> of perl scripts, like the drakxtools. This makes it hard to maintain, and 
+to
+> >> improve.
+> > That's just your own POV.
+> > Not the POV of maintainers.
+> 
+> Are there other maintainers for this tool than it's creators or 
+> long-time maintainers? This is not only my POV, but also what I have 
+> heard from a variety of people since the time I participate a little. 
+> Anyway...
+> 
+> >> I know it works fine for several people. Personally, I am often having
+> >> issues because it's disconnects on it's own,
+> > This has nothing to do with drakconnect that don't handle that.
+> > If the network disconnected, that's the issue between the routers,
+> > the network, the kernel, ....
+> > and no longer sees any networks when it should.
+> > which points to either network issue or kernel driver issue, not 
+drakconnect.
+> 
+> Other people not using Mageia do not get as often disconnected as me 
+> when using public hotspots. Mageia wireless tools seem to have more 
+> difficulty to connect and keep the connections to hotspots that have a 
+> low (not bad, low) quality signal, while Windows keeps connected, or, 
+> quickly reconnects automatically.
+> 
+> Meanwhile, I have to reconnect manually and, more frustrating, it seems 
+> the wireless utility sometime attempts to reconnect automatically, but I 
+> can't clearly know.
+> 
+> The other bizarre thing I often see is when the hotspots he sees fall 
+> from 35 to 0 (or 1, the hotspot he's tryign to connect). This is not 
+> normal, I have not observed this NM, Windows or Mac OS X tools.
+> 
+> >
+> >> Then it has difficulty  reconnecting.
+> > Same, reconnecting is the job of dhcp-client, ifplugd and the like.
+> > Not drakconnect's job.
+> 
+> I can't tell. I can only observe and I do not invent what I describe 
+> (and have already described in the past). :-)
+> 
+> >> Windows, Fedora and Ubuntu's wireless tools work absolutely smoothly at 
+my
+> >> school. And now, other people testing Mageia as school are having the 
+same
+> >> issues I have. This is frustrating and I can assure you these home-made
+> >> network tools have to be improved and fixed.
+> > Well, Fedora tool (really NM) has its own bugs.
+> True.
+> > And I'm pretty sure people who've used MS, Apple or whatever OS/tool
+> > they're used to, have also encountered issues
+> True. But these issues are less evident to find apparently, and do not 
+> affect that much user experience.
+> 
+> When a user wants to connect to a wireless hotspot, he should just click 
+> connect, enter his IDs and it should work fluently. If it is often the 
+> case with Mageia tools with a personal hotspot and when you're next to 
+> it, it is not always the case when you use it everyday, and, sadly, 
+> other tools do better and have a more stable and smooth wireless  
+> connectivity, even if they also encournter issues. Their issues are not 
+> that much affecting user experience like the ones I have described.
+> >> If you want to, I can attempt to make a list of the isses and 
+incoherencies
+> >> I find, although they are not hard to see.
+> > Indeed, please just fill in _several_ bugs (one report per issue)
+> > against drakx-net
+> 
+> I will do one report for each issue I find in drakxnet, with as much 
+> details as possible, yes. I shall also do a video capture of the issue 
+> if it can help. this will take me a lot of time, but I will do it.
+> 
+> >> But as I mentionned earlier, this
+> >> is a tool that is hard to maintain, and I cannot learn perl right now.
+> > That's just _your_ personnal though, not his maintainer's.
+> > aka "this is a tool that is hard to maintain" really means "you would not 
+be
+> > able to maintain it"
+> Right.
+> >> If NetworkManager is easier to maintain and works fine, then I think it 
+can
+> >> be a better solution. Just offering or trying to find solutions, because
+> >> this tool seriously does not work properly here.
+> > it has its own flaws too...
+> Yes, but it does not confuses itself with it's own configuration files. 
+> Clearly, all programs can have flaws, but sincerely, it is not working 
+> well in Mageia and is not pleasant to use. Otherwise I would not report 
+> again about it. ;-)
+> 
+
+btw, i think ALL mageia tools must be redesigned to match the medium usability 
+level of nowadays... 
+
+
+cheers,
+Marcello
+