NetworkManager system-wide use

[Bill Nottingham]

Philip Prindeville (philipp_subx at redfish-solutions.com) said: 
> What?  No.  You can have conditional requirements in the RPM...  such
> as "*iff* the hardware I'm running on has a wireless NIC, then require
> wpa_supplicant."  So the RPM can detect a wireless adapter and
> conditionally define a Requires: wpa_supplicant line in the NetworkManager
> RPM.

Runtime adding of dependencies based on PCI/USB/etc. probing...? I'm
pretty sure RPM can't do that.

> The user is also completely capable of manually installing wpa_supplicant
> if he knows he will be using a plug-in wireless card (though more and
> more wireless cards are mini-PCI, and hence don't get unplugged much).
> 
> This would be better than having an unconditional requirement for wireless
> support in wired-only (desktop) environments.

Currently:

- user uses wireless. It just works.
- user doesn't use wireless. It just works, and they have an extra package.

Your proposal:

- user uses wireless. They must remember to install a specifically named
  package, otherwise, it fails completely.
- user doesn't use wireless. It works.

How is this better *for the user*?

Bill