In looking to attempt a fix of this Bug, with the hope of working to apply the fix suggested by Dan Williamns in the mailing list post from above, I have discovered the following :-
<snip> Perhaps when there aren't any plugins, the list box could be grayed (or just gtk_widget_hide() and pack another widget in the same box) and we put a message there saying that no VPN software is installed, and a button for "Look for VPN software..." which launches the appropriate package manager to find some. Sound OK? </snip> https://projects.gnome.org/NetworkManager/ As far I can tell from the project website, and changelogs no activity has taken place regarding this issue.. Looking at this in more depth, there is an interesting problem. Gnome uses packagekit to manage additional software, in an ideal world, I think it would make sense to call Gnome-PackageKit, which would provide a safe option for Upstream inclusion. However, Ubuntu does not provide Gnome-PackageKit by default. This means that we'd need to make an Ubuntu specific change to call Software Centre. Following on Mathieu's point that PPTP is now included, and that the networkmanager "Choose Connection type" makes a statement about VPN Plugins (See Screenshot) IMHO I propose that this bug be closed, with no further action required.. ** Attachment added: "Network Manager VPN Chooser dialogue" https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager-applet/+bug/370210/+attachment/3925011/+files/Ubuntu-NM-VPN-Connection-chooser.jpg -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to network-manager-applet in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/370210 Title: gui should explain that vpn is not available Status in “network-manager-applet” package in Ubuntu: Triaged Bug description: Binary package hint: network-manager Bug 278153 was originally about the fact that if the openvpn plugin is not installed, the VPN-related options in networkmanager are just grayed out (http://launchpadlibrarian.net/18218320/screenshot.png) with no indication of why, or what can be done to fix it. Bug 278153 is now about installing the plugins by default which is apparently difficult or controversial. It looks like the GUI does now now whether the plugin is available or not, because it disables the options (rather than eg just crashing or erroring when you try to use them.) So this bug could be fixed by displaying a label in that dialog saying "VPN support is not installed" as well as disabling the controls. It's not perfect but it would at least give people a clue what to do next. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager-applet/+bug/370210/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
