NetworkManager update

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 28 April 2006 12:24, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
[...]
>
>I apologize, I completely misread which mailing list you were
> referring to, and I haven't been reading that list closely enough to
> see your thread there and connect it back to this one.  Must have
> been tired when I responded.

We both were I suspect.

>I see you do indeed seem to be operating hardware that requires
>interaction of a number of different, independently developed,
> bleeding edge bits--ndiswrapper and the closed-source driver for your
> card, the open-source driver for your card, NetworkManager, etc. 
> That will require patience and time and interacting with the
> developers.
>
>> ability to get clear back down to the basics in starting to solve a
>> problem seems to have gotten lost in the assumption that 'everyone
>> knows about that' when we don't always.  And I don't think I'm being
>> out of line all that much when I do attempt to draw a picture of
>> what I've got hardware wise, and describe what isn't working without
>> spending 4 paragraphs per piece of hardware in the path, and failing
>> to do so in a manner that allows those who might be able answer my
>> question, because they are lost at turn two in an 8 turn road course
>> I've tried to describe.
>>
>> Thats my fault to a certain extent of course, and I tend to bypass
>> whats important to others because I've been there and done that and
>> I see that particular item as already checked and unimportant.  But
>> it leads to others being confused because my train of thought tends
>> to jump around depending on the clues. I've spent the majority of my
>> 71 years fixing electronics things for a living, and I don't always
>> understand that others don't jump to the answers from what limited
>> info I've got, but I can because after 55 years, you get a sense of
>> smell & feeling that lets you bypass the intermediate steps others
>> would use to confirm, and I've been right often enough that one
>> person, watching me work, wanted to know if I had webbed feet
>> because surely I was walking on water as far as he was concerned.
>
>Well, understanding that about yourself, you can understand how
> developers can get into the same mindset.  They have the benefit of
> knowledge about the field they're working in as well, and it is all
> too easy to act as though everyone has the same knowledge framework
> as you do.
>
>But to effectively work with a diverse group of specialists such as
> the driver authors and the ndiswrapper authors and the NM and
> wpa_supplicant authors, you will need to (a) get out of that mindset
> yourself and be disciplined about gathering evidence and working your
> way through the process and (b) encourage the developers you are
> working with to get out of their mindset and communicate with you
> enough so that you reach common understanding.  As I said, patience
> and perseverance are needed.

True, and a nice thing to have if one has essentially unlimited time.  I 
thought I did, having bought this lappy 3 weeks before the day I leave 
on this trip, but thats pretty much evaporated, rather silently it 
seems, now.

>For example, if you want to try the open-source driver for your card
> (the best long-run solution), you'll need to learn to build and
> install kernel modules.

If its any help, on this machine I'm running 2.6.16.11, and I've 
probably built and run half the kernels that have come out of the 
Torvalds camp over the last 4-5 years.  I have some scripts that take 
the majority of the drudgery out of that, and I can usually dl a new 
patch, put it in, build and install it and reboot to it in less than 20 
minutes wall time.

> And you'll need to fight through the lack of 
> documentation while encouraging people to solve that problem (and
> maybe even contributing yourself).

Well, one thing that puzzled me all through this was I kept seeing 
references to wpa_supplicant in connection with NM, but no one said 
what it does till an earlier today message.  And guess what?  FC5 
doesn't enable that puppy by default. I just turned it on and started 
it, and it doesn't seem to effect a working network ATM, and it might 
be the reason NM has never asked me for a key, its probably not NM that 
asks for the key, I'd bet its wpa_supplicant that actually does that.  
And of course if its not running, then NM hasn't a clue what todo about 
a missing key.  Right?  Some Real Docs would be nice, very nice :(

>> Unforch, that 'intuition' seems to be fading as I get into the 7th
>> decade.  And I should have used "subscribed" rather than "trolling"
>> above, but thats what I feel I'm doing, throwing out a line and
>> trolling for nibbles.
>
>Sure, although "trolling" here usually refers to deliberate attempts
> to incite flame wars--not your intention, I'm sure.

That often depends on the tone of the post.  I have been known to 
inspect tonsil conditions a few times. :)  Generally I'm not trolling 
in the interest of starting a fight,  I know full well I'm not 10 feet 
tall and bulletproof like I *thought* I was 50 years ago.  OTOH, I 
still haven't got enough common sense to run when the fight comes to me 
either.  The net result being that most pretty well know which side of 
a scrap I'll be rooting for, on those lists where I have been active 
for extended periods of time & that goes clear back to the coco list on 
Delphi in the 80's.  :-)

>--
>   Matthew Saltzman
>
>Clemson University Math Sciences
>mjs AT clemson DOT edu
>http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs

-- 
Cheers, Gene
People having trouble with vz bouncing email to me should add the word
'online' between the 'verizon', and the dot which bypasses vz's
stupid bounce rules.  I do use spamassassin too. :-)
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Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.