NetworkManager update

[Matthew Saltzman]

I don't know if starting a new thread is the best idea, but the other 
topic's tree is really dense now, and I didn't want this to get buried.

Here are a couple of things to try:

(1) It occurred to me that most of the people having trouble are probably 
using the NM that shipped with FC5.  There is a NetworkManager update in 
updates-testing that you should really try.

 	yum --enablerepo=updates-testing NetworkManager

The update has been in testing for nearly a month.  I don't know why some 
of these updates are taking so long to be rolled out.

(2) You also want the initscripts from updates-testing (also long overdue 
to be pushed out, IMO).  If your machine has multiple NICs, then the 
current initscripts can swap them on boot and cause lots of flakiness. 
Once initscripts is updated, clear the DHCP leases from /var/<something 
dhcp related> before trying again.  If it were me, I'd delete all devices 
in system-config-network, reboot, and reconfigure the interfaces as needed 
as well.

(3) Some of the reliability issues are due to interactions between NM and 
flakey drivers, and are not NM's fault.  (Usability is a different 
matter.)  It might be worth trying the Netdev kernels at 
http://people.redhat.com/linville/kernels/fedora-netdev/.  They contain 
many driver updates.

(4) There are a number of useful hints for NM and ipw2200 at
http://www.ces.clemson.edu/linux.  Users of other drivers may find some 
useful information there as well.

(4) For real help with NM, send your issues to the developers' list, 
networkmanager-list at gnome.org (subscribe at http://mail.gnome.org).  For 
real bugs, file them in Fedora's Bugzilla.  The goal of NM is to make 
managing connections to multiple networks painless.  If it isn't quite 
there yet, the developers can use all the help you can provide.

HTH.
-- 
 		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs