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

Tue Aug 2 17:42:25 CEST 2011

On Tuesday, 2 August 2011 10:56:55 Thomas Lottmann wrote:
+> 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.
+
+Sure, this should be investigated, however it could be due to things besides 
+the network GUI tools etc. For example, if using wpa_supplicant, once you have 
+selected a wireless network, the Mandriva tools do virtually nothing.
+
+BTW., I notice (from wpa_gui, *not* net_applet, and even without net_applet 
+running) that my machine re-associates to our WPA2-Enterprise network more 
+frequently than other operating systems.
+
+> 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.
+
+These symptoms don't appear to be related to which GUI tool configures 
+wpa_supplicant, but rather points to wpa_supplicant or driver/firmware 
+problems.
+
+> 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). :-)
+
+You could investigate by connecting manaully (iwconfig, wpa_cli, wpa_gui etc.) 
+and report whether doing so solves your problems. If not, you are blaming the 
+wrong thing.
+
+> >> 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.
+
+This works for me (except I don't want my Single-Sign-On password in a clear-
+text configuration file, but it seems no distro has fixed all the issues with 
+this yet).
+
+> 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.
+
+I would rather spend the time testing whether the behaviour is the same 
+without e.g. net_applet. Videos showing nothing that can help find the problem 
+is just a waste of time.
+
+> 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.
+
+Who says your issues are in this tool?
+
+> > 
+> > 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.
+
+Hmm, you mean wpa_supplicant.conf? That's not net_applet's own configuration 
+file ... but configuring wpa_supplicant via dbus or the unix socket may be 
+better.
+
+> 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. ;-)
+
+But, please investigate *what* pieces of Mageia are at fault, it seems you 
+have assumed that anything to do with any network issue at all, regardless of 
+whether it is the AP, the device, the firmware, driver, kernel, supplicant, or 
+GUI, is due to the net_applet and associated tools.
+
+Regards,
+Buchan
+