First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for their hard work on this project, NM is an awesome tool. This post isn't so much a complaint as it is feedback and an inquiry, so sorry if it comes off harsh.
I'm an Ubuntu 8.04 user and occasionally I need to use my Dell laptop's modem because I am not near any wireless or wired connections. After finally getting the drivers up and running, I noticed that using a modem in nm is a little awkward. I have two options: connect to ppp0 and disconnect from ppp0. I'm trying to figure out what was the design decision behind having it that way. I feel like I have no real control over my modem when using nm because I get no feedback about what my modem is doing. As a recent convert to Linux, here's my experience using nm for dialup for the first time: 1. I press connect to ppp0, nothing happens, so I press it again. I'm wondering "hmm, how do I know if it's dialing?" after trying again, a few seconds it starts to dial. I think to myself "that was weird, but oh well, it's working now" 2. After the dialing process and all those classic beeps and boops and screeches that we've all come to love have finished, nothing happens. The icon of nm stays in the disconnected state (two computers with a red [X]) I'm thinking "wait, did it connect or what?" 3. I go to the dialup connections menu in nm and see that my 2 choices are still "connect to ppp0" and "disconnect from ppp0". I open my browser to discover that I do in fact have a connection, but I'm still confused. 4. When I have concluded the use of the internet, I go to "disconnect from ppp0", and once again, I find no indication that it has successfully disconnected. Now, as a little background, I'm a computer science student in college, so if it confused me, I'd hate to be in the situation of other users. And while some of you may suggest that there are other programs out there instead of nm, if nm is the default manager for a distro like ubuntu, then making it as transparent to users as possible is probably a goal. I guess what I'd like to see is some sort of feedback from nm during the use of dialup connections. Are there technical limitations that prevent this, or is it more of a lack of manpower? If I can learn about the situation, then perhaps I may be able to contribute to make nm just as amazing for dialup as it is for wired/wireless connections. - Jess Bermudes _______________________________________________ NetworkManager-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/networkmanager-list
