Managing network is not easy from computer’s point of view. There’s little automagic to do. But most folks don’t get it and try to automate the hell out of it.
We have the Network Manager example of how NOT to do a network manager. It fucks up what you do in console, does a lot of stuff without even telling you wtf is it doing. Otoh it has good support for 3g dongles and has a neat interface in gnome.
So what should a network manager do?
* Connecting to wireless
* Connecting to 3g
* Connecting to Vpn
* Sharing connection(ethernet, wireless)
* Setting up a quick local network (gaming, lan parties)
* Choosing default route
* Choosing global dns
* Notify about network changes (disconnected, connected from console and so on)
* Wireless link in gui
So if you’re wondering, they’re all features i plan for netcfgfx, and this network manager won’t be archlinux only. Stay tuned
There is one more feature that I want in a network manager that none of the mainstream Linux gui’s support. I want to configure a set of network service clients that should be started up and shutdown when I enter/leave a network. Example services include: network printers, file shares (over sshfs, smbfs, openafs, etc), mythtv backend connections, etc. I have a laptop, and I want to be able to hook in some network-specific scripts that get executed on connection and then on disconnection such that I can enable or disable client services based on what I know to be available on that network. I have a mythtv server at home that I want to connect to over sshfs and myth{front,back}end, along with a separate CUPS print server. On my campus network, I have openafs, webauth, and a different set of network printers. All the manager needs to do is allow me to define a place to add post-connect and post-disconnect hooks and then I can get those things to work automatically.
>It fucks up what you do in console, does a lot of stuff without even telling you wtf is it doing.
Then you need to read a manual, not reinvent the wheel. You can disable it from the tray icon if you want to do something manually in the console, or get network-manager-cli from the later versions. All of those feature you mention are already supported by network manager, or are planned for future releases.
For more manual control, how is netcfgfx going to be different from wicd?
@JDB netcfg configs allow that
@mark very different.
It doesn’t treat the user like he’s a complete noob.
It manages only profiles/intefaces you decide.
It’s scriptable.
You can create modules and hooks very quickly.
Wicd is a pure python implementation. It doesn’t allow openvpn. Doesn’t allow multiple connections at once..