NetworkManager update

[Dan]

Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Friday 28 April 2006 12:24, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
> [...]
>   
>> I apologize, I completely misread which mailing list you were
>> referring to, and I haven't been reading that list closely enough to
>> see your thread there and connect it back to this one.  Must have
>> been tired when I responded.
>>     
>
> We both were I suspect.
>
>   
>> I see you do indeed seem to be operating hardware that requires
>> interaction of a number of different, independently developed,
>> bleeding edge bits--ndiswrapper and the closed-source driver for your
>> card, the open-source driver for your card, NetworkManager, etc. 
>> That will require patience and time and interacting with the
>> developers.
>>
>>     
>>> ability to get clear back down to the basics in starting to solve a
>>> problem seems to have gotten lost in the assumption that 'everyone
>>> knows about that' when we don't always.  And I don't think I'm being
>>> out of line all that much when I do attempt to draw a picture of
>>> what I've got hardware wise, and describe what isn't working without
>>> spending 4 paragraphs per piece of hardware in the path, and failing
>>> to do so in a manner that allows those who might be able answer my
>>> question, because they are lost at turn two in an 8 turn road course
>>> I've tried to describe.
>>>
>>> Thats my fault to a certain extent of course, and I tend to bypass
>>> whats important to others because I've been there and done that and
>>> I see that particular item as already checked and unimportant.  But
>>> it leads to others being confused because my train of thought tends
>>> to jump around depending on the clues. I've spent the majority of my
>>> 71 years fixing electronics things for a living, and I don't always
>>> understand that others don't jump to the answers from what limited
>>> info I've got, but I can because after 55 years, you get a sense of
>>> smell & feeling that lets you bypass the intermediate steps others
>>> would use to confirm, and I've been right often enough that one
>>> person, watching me work, wanted to know if I had webbed feet
>>> because surely I was walking on water as far as he was concerned.
>>>       
>> Well, understanding that about yourself, you can understand how
>> developers can get into the same mindset.  They have the benefit of
>> knowledge about the field they're working in as well, and it is all
>> too easy to act as though everyone has the same knowledge framework
>> as you do.
>>
>> But to effectively work with a diverse group of specialists such as
>> the driver authors and the ndiswrapper authors and the NM and
>> wpa_supplicant authors, you will need to (a) get out of that mindset
>> yourself and be disciplined about gathering evidence and working your
>> way through the process and (b) encourage the developers you are
>> working with to get out of their mindset and communicate with you
>> enough so that you reach common understanding.  As I said, patience
>> and perseverance are needed.
>>     
>
> True, and a nice thing to have if one has essentially unlimited time.  I 
> thought I did, having bought this lappy 3 weeks before the day I leave 
> on this trip, but thats pretty much evaporated, rather silently it 
> seems, now.
>
>   
>> For example, if you want to try the open-source driver for your card
>> (the best long-run solution), you'll need to learn to build and
>> install kernel modules.
>>     
>
> If its any help, on this machine I'm running 2.6.16.11, and I've 
> probably built and run half the kernels that have come out of the 
> Torvalds camp over the last 4-5 years.  I have some scripts that take 
> the majority of the drudgery out of that, and I can usually dl a new 
> patch, put it in, build and install it and reboot to it in less than 20 
> minutes wall time.
>
>   
>> And you'll need to fight through the lack of 
>> documentation while encouraging people to solve that problem (and
>> maybe even contributing yourself).
>>     
>
> Well, one thing that puzzled me all through this was I kept seeing 
> references to wpa_supplicant in connection with NM, but no one said 
> what it does till an earlier today message.  And guess what?  FC5 
> doesn't enable that puppy by default. I just turned it on and started 
> it, and it doesn't seem to effect a working network ATM, and it might 
> be the reason NM has never asked me for a key, its probably not NM that 
> asks for the key, I'd bet its wpa_supplicant that actually does that.  
> And of course if its not running, then NM hasn't a clue what todo about 
> a missing key.  Right?  Some Real Docs would be nice, very nice :(
>
>   
>>> Unforch, that 'intuition' seems to be fading as I get into the 7th
>>> decade.  And I should have used "subscribed" rather than "trolling"
>>> above, but thats what I feel I'm doing, throwing out a line and
>>> trolling for nibbles.
>>>       
>> Sure, although "trolling" here usually refers to deliberate attempts
>> to incite flame wars--not your intention, I'm sure.
>>     
>
> That often depends on the tone of the post.  I have been known to 
> inspect tonsil conditions a few times. :)  Generally I'm not trolling 
> in the interest of starting a fight,  I know full well I'm not 10 feet 
> tall and bulletproof like I *thought* I was 50 years ago.  OTOH, I 
> still haven't got enough common sense to run when the fight comes to me 
> either.  The net result being that most pretty well know which side of 
> a scrap I'll be rooting for, on those lists where I have been active 
> for extended periods of time & that goes clear back to the coco list on 
> Delphi in the 80's.  :-)
>
>   
>> --
>>   Matthew Saltzman
>>
>> Clemson University Math Sciences
>> mjs AT clemson DOT edu
>> http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs
>>     
>
>   
It's not that NM isn't asking you for the key, or wpa_supplicant isn't 
asking you for the key, nm-applet for Gnome isn't asking you for the 
key. As I've said, it does all the asking/storage/etc, so your best bet 
is to google up the KDE applet in development and get on board with 
that. I don't have wpa_supplicant enabled (may be why I can only get WEP 
to work, or maybe its not, I don't know) but WEP definitely doesn't need 
that service to be enabled.
-Dan