On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 8:21 PM, Maarten Vanraes <[email protected]> wrote: > Op maandag 01 augustus 2011 11:42:26 schreef Thomas Lottmann: >> 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! >> >> 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. >> >> 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. >> >> Yours sincerely,. >> >> Thomas. > > > personally, alot of problems could likely be attributed to using all those > several of those apps together. > > imho, the network tools should be redesigned a bit, according to good > usability, but mostly, either they should all be nicely integrated which each > other, or we should just have one that does all nicely. > > personally, i find the netapplet the best working and use that exclusively to > avoid issues. > > but sadly, even netapplet is far from complete. > > as some kind of start, we should have an app that exists in drakconf, but also > accessible via an applet, but again, perhaps we should have multiple applets, > with one for each connection. > > eg: a wifi access link, 2 network connections (one of which goes to internet), > and 3 openvpn tunnels (as an example) it would even be better, if bluetooth > networking could also be included. (this would also allow for multiple > internet connections at a later time with some advanced routing) > > at the same time, people could tell at a glance if they accidentally use more > than one internet access method. > > about openvpn, some of those are user-related (even though they have effects > on > global routing), especially password related things, personally, i think it'd > be better if these can only be controlled through the applet by the user it's > from (with perhaps an option to allow any user to control this too) > > again with openvpn, it would be usefull if there was some kind of way to know > it's not only running, but also if it's essentially active or not, and if it's > used as a internet gateway. > > These are some things which i have noticed over the years of using it and > listening to end-user problems. > > > perhaps the above can be used as a starting point for a usability scheme. > > Thomas, since you feel this strongly, are you willing to spend some time on > this? >
AFAIK this is not on mageia 2 specs, maybe you should not ask ppl if they have time to work on things not on specs, and try to focus on specs. We have a lot to do already don't you think ? Maybe it could be nice to improve net_applet instead of doing "yet an other software for network". I used some other distro for years and now i use mageia. Honnestly i miss nothing ( from a normal user POV )
