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

[Sigrid Carrera]

Hi Wolfgang, *, 

On Mon, 1 Aug 2011 13:10:08 +0200
Wolfgang Bornath <molch.b at googlemail.com> wrote:

> 2011/8/1 Thomas Lottmann <skipercooker at gmail.com>:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I should have written this mail much sooner, but finally, I am totally,
> > completely and starting to be hatefully fed up of these tools.
> >
> > The Mandriva/Mageia tools that manage the network on computers, especially
> > the wireless networks are completely dysfunctional. While the Network Center
> > does not seem to even communicate with the system tools to know what is
> > happening during the link setup, it does not auto-refresh network lists
> > properly.
> >
> > Since 2010.1 now even mixes up itself in it's own network scripts (the ones
> > stored in wireless.d). This maxes it wrongly detect numerous wireless points
> > (he seen WPA2 Enterperise hotspots as opened or WEP, or more nerving,
> > becomes incapable or storing the right authentication information). A tool
> > that breaks itself is a complete shame!

I agree, I had this happening to me as well. I'm running Mageia 1, the stable distribution, not a Cauldron installation. 

I have already entered a bug report about my problem (see https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1263) and it is annoying. 
without any reason (at least, not one, that I can see) my wireless connection disconnects and every try to reconnect ends in failure. And if I check then the configuration, the connection is set to either OPEN or WEP instead of WPA2. 

> >
> > The GUI is also appalling. Despite it's numerous possibilities, it is a mess
> > and 60% of it cannot be used by something else than the system or a network
> > expert.

I don't have a specific opinion about the GUI. When it works, it's fine. I am wondering sometimes, what all those options are for, but since now, I've always managed to get a working connection, so this is not a mayor issue for me. 

> >
> > The code itself is undocumented and it extremely difficult to read.
> >
> > These tools are getting really bad and not working properly anyway since a
> > long time now. So either we fix it and improve it (recoding?), either we
> > definitely switch to Network Manager. I am ready to participate if necessary
> > (despite my lack of competence), but I do not want to see these tools 'as
> > is' on my computer anymore, and no longer want to see these issues that down
> > Mageia's reputation in comparison to other popular projects here such as
> > Arch, Fedora or Ubuntu, who do have proper tools delivered by default.
> >
> > This is not the first time I complain about this tool. We should not leave
> > this unchanged. It is far too annoying and pushing to so much loss of time.

I can't say anything about the code, I haven't looked at it. (Not that I understand much about coding). ;) 

> 
> While I cannot confirm the problems you are talking about in former
> Mandriva (2010.x) nor in Mageia 1, I do have the problems in Mageia
> Cauldron, mostly caused by (guess what?) - network-manager! I reported
> about this in the forum
> (https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=869).
> Just current case: after an update run in Cauldron my wifi does not
> connect, then connects and disconnects again after a few seconds.
> After trying several measurements like removing the setup-script,
> removing the connection in MCC, etc., all without result, I
> de-installed network-manager and configured wifi again by the draktool
> without NM - it works now.
> 
> As you see, my "mileage" varies from yours. :)

Yes, indeed, the experiences vary. But this doesn't mean, that one opinion or experience can be dismissed because you have some different experiences. (Wobo, this is not meant as a comment to you personally, it's more a general comment!) 

Sigrid