NetworkManager system-wide use

[Philip Prindeville]

Bill Nottingham wrote:
> 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.
>   

Look at /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/network-functions, in
particular is_wireless_device().

Also look at how "service network status" works.


>> 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.
>   

No, only for plug-in wireless users.  But they need to do that anyway.

(for the aforementioned chicken-and-the-egg reasons...)

-Philip

> - user doesn't use wireless. It works.
>
> How is this better *for the user*?
>
> Bill
>
>