trends in fedora

[Arthur Pemberton]

On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Russell Strong <russell at strong.id.au> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've just installed Fedora 9 on my laptop, and unfortunately a few things
> are getting worse in Fedora.
>
> Network management has always been awkward on Fedora and with Fedora 9 it's
> getting much worse.
>
> 1. I have always edited the config files directly to get things working.
>  And still have to ( it's just a straight forward wireless connection ).

Wireless isn't straightforward in Linux at all, mostly due to hardware issues.

> 2. NetworkManager is now the default on install, BUT...

Wireless was unworkable for me before NetworkManager

>   2.1 NetworkManager does not give you a wireless connection when no user is
> logged in.

I think, while that may be a short coming, it is fairly standard
between GNU/Linux and Windows (possibly Mac). At least with Linux, you
can get around that, one day, maybe even using NetworkManager

>         2.1.1 How am I going to run any network service, NTP, NFS, httpd,
> etc..... without a network?

I don't think servers using wireless cards as their primary route is a
target use case of NetworkManager yet.
For clients, I'm not sure what the idea is for NTP, and using autofs
to mount your NFS shares will fix this issue.

>         2.1.2 How am I going to remotely administer my machines?

Seems like you'll need an init script to setup some default wireless connection

>   2.2 NetworkManager does not give you the ability to configure system wide
> networking services or policy.

I'm not sure what you mean here, so I withhold comments

>   2.3 NetworkManager does not have any decent documentation.

Fair problem

> 3. Try using WPA and DHCP at the same time.It's never worked in this or
> any previous Fedora.  Yes, NM will do it, but that's no good because of the
> previously stated problems.

Here, I suggest you try to work closesly with the NetworkManager devs
to solve the problems you have with it, as NM is meant to solve
problems like this.

> the network service won't do it because it
> tries to run DHCP immediately after bringing up the interfaces...It SHOULD
> wait until wpa_supplicant has run and the interface is available for traffic
> before kicking off DHCP...

Again, I don't think that servers using wifi+dhpc without a logged in
user is as yet a target use case for NM. If you can suggest tweaks to
the devs, maybe they can implement them for you

> GDM was functional, well behaved and stable in Fedora 8.  I used it to log
> into other F8 machines locked away in difficult to get at racks.  Fedora 9
> has effectively removed that ability by shipping a GDM with gdmsetup.  How
> many users depend on that functionality?  I did, and won't be able to
> upgrade to F9 for any other machines.

Well, a few things here. I don't use GDM myself. 'Login' here is
pretty ambiguous. Since you mentioned GDM, I'll assume GUI login via
VNC. I'm surprised to here that logging with VNC via the default login
greeter isn't working. GUIs on remote racks may not be a popular, well
tested use case (I think most people associate headless with GUI less)

> A suggestion...

1) Consider a slower paced distro like Centos if it suits your needs
2) You seem to have a fairly serious setup going, your input on
shotcomings, along with details of your use cases may be very useful.
I suggest filing bugs and RFEs, and hope for positive responses.

> Use the fedora website/wiki to collect information about use cases.  Find
> out what people depend on.  Use that to provide a guarantee that
> functionality and usefulness won't go backwards.  If it was ever setup,  I'd
> tell you everything I do with my machines.

Your on track with this, but I suggest using bugzilla.redhat.com. The
wiki isn't (at least not yet) the best place for this.

> Russell



-- 
Fedora 9 : sulphur is good for the skin
( www.pembo13.com )