The case against NetworkManager

[Timothy Murphy]

Chris Jones wrote:

>> I actually think NM tries to do far too much.
>> I don't seen any advantage in software that deals with WiFi
>> and ethernet together.
> 
> I do.
> 
> It is very useful to have something that automatically switches between
> ethernet and wireless networks transparently depending on what is
> available and what isn't. NM does this for you and presumably it can
> only do this by knowing about ethernet and wireless at the same time.

I have no problem at all with this.
I have WiFi on eth0 and ethernet on eth1.
If WiFi is available it uses that;
if not, eth0 does not come up, and eth1 is used.

Incidentally, I have never ever had any problem with ethernet;
the cheapest and scruffiest devices seem to work perfectly.

Sadly, WiFi under all Linux distributions I have tried is not good -
as far as I can see, all the distributions try to be too clever;
so if WiFi is not working it is difficult to work out why.
All WiFi error messages seem to be written by aliens.

WiFi under Windows is not perfect, by any means -
but at least it is fairly easy to see what is wrong
if it is not working.