k-n-m 0.7: feedback and questions

[Dennis Gilmore]

On Friday 13 June 2008, Helmut Schaa wrote:
> Hi Michael,
>
> Am Fr 13 Jun 2008 01:43:19 CEST schrieb Michael Biebl <biebl at debian.org>:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I've been using NM 0.7 (svn r3750) and k-n-m 0.7 (svn r819795) for some
> > time now, and I noticed a few things.
> > First of all, the good: Creating (wireless) connections basically works
> > (tested with WPA).
>
> WPA-EAP is currently broken. WEP should work fine.
>
> > Now the bad:
> > 1.) kwalletmanager is *not* used for storing the WPA secrets
>
> Correct. I'm not working on that yet but it should not be too much
> work as the secret handling is already designed to be able to work
> with KWallet.
This is a critical missing feature

> > 2.) Creating a wireless connection has become a bit more complicated.
> > knm 0.2 showed me a list of all available wlans, and I could simply
> > select one and knm prompted me for the password. simple.
> > Now I first have to create a connection manually (via "New connection"
> > or "Edit connections".) The new interface is not so intuitive as the
> > old one, although I admit, that the context menu can become a bit
> > cluttered, if you have a lot of wlans active in your area.
>
> Exactly that was the reason why we decided not to show all available
> wireless networks in the context menu but only the known ones. Maybe
> if time allows that could be made configurable.

I find the current process of creating a network unmanageable.  I travel for 
work and don't always know in advance the network i'm going to connect to 
when at public hot spots  or at friends houses etc.  it is expected that i 
can see the network and select it.  we should have a default configuration 
for GSM/CDMA modems also. 99% of networks use the same settings.  we should 
only need to set things like APN if really needed by the carrier.  this is 
one area that NetworkManager-gnome has things right. 

> > 3.) The nice info dialog is gone ;-) Also, k-n-m 0.2 showed me useful
> > information when I hovered over the networks in the dropdown list.
> > Maybe this is a deliberate decision to simplify the UI, just wanted to
> > note that I liked the old behaviour.
>
> Yes, I want that too but functionality is currently more important
> then porting the info dialog and tooltips.
>
> > 4.) Integration with system-settings service is missing.
> >   a.) It's not possible to store/edit/activate system settings
> >   b.) If e.g. a wlan system connection is active, k-n-m only shows a
> > green globe, not the actual status.
>
> That's on my list.

> > All in all, the situation is much improved over a few weeks ago and knm
> > 0.7 is basically usable (so kudos!), but 1.) and 4.) are currently my
> > two main showstoppers.
> >
> > So, my question is, if you are already working on these issue and if
> > there is a  time frame, when we can expect this.
>
> I cannot give you an estimation just yet but I'll keep you posted.
>
> > I'd like to get NM 0.7 into Debian lenny, which would require a
> > functional k-n-m. Without a fully working k-n-m, I'll have to stick to
> > 0.6.6.
>
> The basic problem is that NM 0.7 is not even released and it is really
> exhausting to work on the 0.7-branch with its unstable API. That
> basically means that one cannot expect a KNM SVN snapshot to work
> smoothly with a NM SVN snapshot.
I think Dan is trying to keep the API fairly stable at this point.  

fro me 1 and 2 are the most critical issues.  but i am really happy to see 
that things seem to be getting better.

Dennis
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