f8: NetworkManager + runlevel 3 problem

Timothy Murphy tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
Sun Nov 11 12:57:34 UTC 2007


David Boles wrote:

> Do you know of, can you name, another distro where "Wireless" does not
> "sucks"? Just curious here because I thought that this a Linux, in
> general, driver problem caused by proprietary drivers and not just the
> fault of Fedora.

I must say I share the view that WiFi in Fedora is very badly organized.
As far as I am concerned the problem is not with drivers,
but with the basic WiFi setup.

Unfortunately I don't think NM is the answer.
It adds another layer on top of everything else,
and if something is wrong at the bottom
this just adds to the confusion.

Also, although this seems to be a minority view,
I think NM tries to do far too much.
Basically, I have no problem at all with ethernet, ever,
and don't really want anything "improving" on my setup.
And the problems I meet with bluetooth
are nothing to do with the issues dealt with by NM.

I find system-config-network, and its GUI counterparts,
are confusing and badly set out.
And the wireless tools like iwconfig and iwlist
are also rather a confusing mess.

What I would like is a tool that would tell me,
if I had a problem, exactly what was happening
at the bottom WiFi layer,
eg a WiFi message of some kind has been sent out,
and a response of some kind has been received
from this or that WiFi device.

I find it very difficult to determine,
if I am unable to connect with WiFi,
whether the problem is with authentication,
with routing, or just that there is no signal received.

What I find annoying is when the connection LED on my WiFi device
flashes, indication that there is some conversation going on,
but nothing in Fedora tells me what it is -
or maybe I can deduce something from /var/log/messages .

Incidentally, I find WiFi under Windows XP
is also rather confusing, though less so than Fedora.
One thing I find odd is that even if I am connected
to an access point, Windows says it cannot find a network.






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