Will NetworkManager 0.7 be ready for Hardy?

[High Roller]

.....Only time will tell. But I think it's getting closer to show time for NetworkManager 0.7

http://blogs.gnome.org/dcbw/2007/10/15/networkmanager-07-is-the-new-chuck-norris/

[Xbehave]

if i read it correctly then the improvements are essential for laptops as wireless is what kills my battery atm (that and that kde is stuck in 3d mode :?)

[zachtib]

i hope so, 0.7 looks like it's going to be great. i just hope that it can connect to my school's network

[insane_alien]

if it turns out better than WICD i may just have to go back to nm. but for now WICD is perfect(cept for WPA2 it doesn't work at all for me, WPA1 does though so it is forgiven)

nm has been in need ofthis for years.

[ssam]

fedora 8 will have NM0.7 (or at least a snapshot)

http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/fedora-8-with-networkmanager-07-and-kde-4-developmentruntime-environment/

f8 is only weeks away, so i'd expect hardy to get it. (unless it goes horribly wrong for fedora)

[High Roller]

fedora 8 will have NM0.7 (or at least a snapshot)

http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/fedora-8-with-networkmanager-07-and-kde-4-developmentruntime-environment/

f8 is only weeks away, so i'd expect hardy to get it. (unless it goes horribly wrong for fedora)

I expect that Fedora will get a snapshop of NM 0.7. The fully featured "final" release of NM 0.7 won't be until the new year from what I gather. So I think it might be down to the wire in terms of Hardy getting the final. Would Ubuntu include a snapshot in their LTS release? Maybe, I guess it'll depend on how much polish the snapshot has.

[bikeboy]

They'll probably put a pre-release in early enough for us to test its stability and find bugs. If it's not good enough after our testing it can be reverted to improve Hardy's final stability.

[reacocard]

feature freeze isn't until Feb 14 so there's a good short of NM 0.7 being out in time.

I think ubuntu would put it in even as prerelease if it resolves enough issues (static ip, multiple devices, etc.), especially if it goes over well in Fedora.

[outer_space]

I wish network manager would let me connect with wvdial. It has wvdial but it forces you to use dialup modem parameters when I use a cell phone that needs a special ppp and wvdial script.

[Kosimo]

I wish network manager will allow me someday to change my IP easily... And stop running on DHCP.

[High Roller]

I wish network manager will allow me someday to change my IP easily... And stop running on DHCP.

That'll be NM 0.7
Can't wait! :)

[syxbit]

current nm is pretty lame.
if i get disconnected, i can't reconnect. i have to reboot.
lame
hope 0.7 fixes it

[kevdog]

Who decided on nm as the default networking GUI in the first place?? WICD seems better in many ways. NM is buggy particularly with ra based chipsets.

[23meg]

How about this: current NM is pretty good, because I say so, and because it works for me and always has.

Who decided on nm as the default networking GUI in the first place??

The technical board, naturally.

NM is buggy particularly with ra based chipsets.

See http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=3602609&postcount=2 and http://live.gnome.org/NetworkManagerHardware.

[gnomeuser]

I use 0.7 on Fedora 8 right now, the improvements are so massive it's hard to describe in words.. My Fedora developer overlords have done good work, many praises to them.

I'd say no doubt this will, and should be in Hardy - it's just that great. Especially when coupled with all the nice new wifi stack and driver work we've been doing upstream.

Hopefully the day when wifi is a hard thing to deal with under Linux will finally be banished soon, NM 0.7 takes us a massive step further.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

You’ll be able to have more than one device active at one time, and share an internet connection between them. For once you’ll be able to easily share that $9.99/hr hotel WiFi connection with your friends over ethernet, or an ethernet connection with your friends over WiFi.Woah, hold on a tick...

Did I read that right?! Would that allow one computer to be connected to two networks? ...Leading to something like grabbing a wireless share from one network and feeding it to another wired network with a single motion?
The possibilities unlocked by that are spectacular.

I suppose this is already quite possible, though, and I have simply been unaware. Still, good to have an easy (and now better) GUI to handle it.

NetworkManager, I forgive you! I take back all the mean things I said to you. I'll be nice from now on as long as you don't refuse my wireless hardware your services :'(

Pleased to see the dropping of threads, too. I know they're popular these days, but they just don't seem necessary for a system whose core technology encourages small daemons and simple apps. May as well avoid those convoluted things altogether and leave multi-core stuff up to the kernel.

[syxbit]

when will network manager 0.7 be merged into hardy?
i'm having major issues with my rtl8187 driver (constant disconnects) in gutsy
i want to switch to hardy dev cycle once they have it.
i assume it'll use the regular 0.6.5 for a while right?

[walkerk]

How about this: current NM is pretty good, because I say so, and because it works for me and always has.

So because it works well for you it couldn't possibly work flaky for others?

My head hurts...

[StevenHarper]

For me NetworkManager has caused no end of pain on laptop wireless connections, but I have stuck with it - once it works, it pretty stable.

I can't wait for 0.7, the new features and code improvements look great, de-threading the app seems to be a great move to stability for a product that heavily relies upon (mostly) 3rd party drivers.

The 3G card features look next to amazing, and the sharing of wireless connections is going to save £££ when I stop in hotels.

I really hope it gets into Hardy, its one of the last default apps in Ubuntu that causes me the odd problem.

Steve

[Sand Lee]

So because it works well for you it couldn't possibly work flaky for others?

My head hurts...

He's making the point that just because some people are having problems with the application and they want to change it does not inherently mean the application is bad and alternative applications are better across the board.

[qamelian]

So because it works well for you it couldn't possibly work flaky for others?

My head hurts...
The same applies to folks pushing for Wicd though. I keep trying it and I can't find any polite words to describe it. The current release of Wicd is the first one that has been able to connect at all on my laptop while NM has always worked flawlessly. After giving the latest Wicd a try for three days, I had to get rid of it and go back to NM because WIcd kept disconnecting from my network and refusing to reconnect. I was restating the network manually every three or four minutes. I've been on line with NM now for almost 12 hours without a hiccup.

[rahulthewall3000]

Well, I guess we should use whatever we want to. We are on Linux - we have the choice. If NM works, well and good. If it does not, try WICD, if WICD does not work, try wifi radar. If that also does not work, there is always the command line.

Peace

[23meg]

So because it works well for you it couldn't possibly work flaky for others?

My head hurts...

If you take it out of context, it does read like that, and makes one's head hurt, just like the opposite argument, doesn't it?

Now read it in context, noting the sarcasm.

[raiwo]

I seriously hope so, I installed 7.10 for my sister, machine uses netgear WG511v1 card which uses prism54 drivers, everything worked fine in my house I was able to connect fine in my WPA protected network, but after I tried to connect another WPA protected network in other location network-manager didn't give me a choice to choose WPA as a network protection type for some reason even when the network is really WPA protected! Really weird, works in one location but not in other, checked everything on network with my own laptop & everything is just fine but NM can't connect in it....

[/end of ranting]

Anyway I really hope these kind of things get fixed on next version + add refresh networks button for gods sake!

[The Noble]

This just made my day. The one feature that I have always wished was easier (in both windows and linux) is connection sharing. If it is as easy as I hope it is then I can die happy.

[Vadi]

It better be ready. For some it works great, for others its a very embarassing thing.

[der_vegi]

It better be ready. For some it works great, for others its a very embarassing thing.

Yeah, I am also one of the - more or less - embarassed ones. ;) How often I had to kill NetworkManager and nm-applet to get my wireless connection working again I cannot tell anymore. I am really looking forward to 0.7!

[High Roller]

I've been following the networkmanager mailing list. I get the impression that we're not going to see NM 0.7 for Hardy. More like Hardy +1 (or maybe even +2).

What we'd be most likely to see in Hardy is NM 0.6.6

[Vadi]

Great, just great.

Someone finally gets their drivers working, and... the default software cannot use them. While other can. Argh.

[jsmidt]

I know this is an LTS release but what good will it be if the default shipped software can't handle networking that well "out of the box?"

Please devs, please, be like fedora and ship a stable snapshot of the network-manager 7.0 branch.

[mabovo]

I think network-manager is only a GUI interface.
If one do "sudo apt-get remove network-manager" it causes nothing to wireless connection.
I have an AR5418 atheros wireless card for MAcBook 2nd generation and it works fine with madwifi or ndiswrapper without need of nm-0.6.6.

Maybe this thread should be addressed to next release Hardy +1 (Indigo Inn ?)

[Shin_Gouki2501]

sounds damn nice im looking forward to this!

[syxbit]

i'm not going to be happy if it doesn't make the cut.
so many things were announced for hardy, and almost all of it is getting dropped.
no theme, no nm 0.7, what next!

[23meg]

Where was NM 0.7 "announced for Hardy"?

Even if it were announced, unless the upstream developers actually shipped it, it couldn't be included. There'd be nothing we could do about it.

[gnomeuser]

i'm not going to be happy if it doesn't make the cut.
so many things were announced for hardy, and almost all of it is getting dropped.
no theme, no nm 0.7, what next!

Every major distro is moving to NM 0.7, Fedora has led the development and as such has had it in deployment for many months. OpenSUSE just included NM 0.7 in their latest Alpha release.

Not going with NM 0.7 would certainly make Hardy define "miserable failure", e.g. I just took the Hardy Alpha 3 as well as a daily snapshot for a test spin on my laptop and notice that my Intel based wifi chipset would not connect to WPA.. disappointing to say the least.

:(

[23meg]

Related blueprint:

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/nm-ifupdown-death-match

[jsmidt]

Every major distro is moving to NM 0.7, Fedora has led the development and as such has had it in deployment for many months. OpenSUSE just included NM 0.7 in their latest Alpha release.
:(


I think Ubuntu had a better approach with Dapper. With Dapper they forged ahead and tried to include every new feature possible. I admit it took them an extra 6 weeks to polish it up, but still, Dapper worked and at the time was hands down the best distro ever.

I am getting concerned this, not being aggressive, approach is going to lead to a release where fedora and OpenSuse easily outdo Ubuntu.

[syxbit]

I think Ubuntu had a better approach with Dapper. With Dapper they forged ahead and tried to include every new feature possible. I admit it took them an extra 6 weeks to polish it up, but still, Dapper worked and at the time was hands down the best distro ever.

I am getting concerned this, not being aggressive, approach is going to lead to a release where fedora and OpenSuse easily outdo Ubuntu.

i couldn't agree more.
i don't believe that being extra conservative will help Ubuntu.
in the case of Dapper, the reason (IMO) that it was great is cause they weren't trying to make it an LTS.
they tried to make it the best distro, and gave it an extra 6 weeks of polishing.
So it was a normal (even ambitious) Ubuntu release, but with extra bug fixing.

hardy is looking like it might be like the debian etch release.
stable, but too conservative, and with out of date stuff.
I say if you want that, just use debian.
I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have included pulse audio if they hadn't felt forced to.

to think there was debate about whether to use 2.6.23 or 2.6.24!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what the heck!
they're releasing in late april! why on earth would 2.6.23 even be considered!

[nanog]

I believe it was not included by default in fedora 8.
If it does not make it into hardy I suspect it will be made available to early adopters one way or another.

[nanog]

I was wrong an svn version is in fedora 8. It looks like 0.7 is still under heavy development, however.

[Darrena]

I follow the NM development mailing list closely and it is NOT ready for Hardy and most likely will not be ready in time to make the release.

I am running a SVN snapshot and find that it works well but it only recently reached feature parity with 0.6.5. Since Upstream has not announced any intention of dropping support for 0.6.x (0.6.6 will probably released soon) it makes no sense to put an unfinished product into a LTS release.

I wouldn't worry too much about this, 0.7 RIGHT NOW is NOT any better than 0.6.5. it will be in time but it is not now and will not be in time for Hardy's freeze. The features everyone is looking for like Static Addresses, Profiles, PPP/GSM Support, etc are still not in a completely working state. What would be the point of shipping a version of network manager where half the dialogs are still just placeholders?

When 0.7 is released I am sure someone will create packages or instructions for installing it so for those who like to be on the bleeding edge it will be available. But those who need a stable LTS they will still have 0.6.x

As for Fedora shipping it, keep in mind that Fedora doesn't have a LTS release so they don't have to worry about supporting it more than 18 months like the Ubuntu Dev's have to. The Fedora team is going to be updating FC8 during it's release which is something an Ubuntu LTS cannot do.

[Vadi]

So can we look at better alternatives then? Like WICD?

I find it absoltely silly that after the drivers part, the worst nightmare, is done over with, a program is so stuck-up that it refuses to use whatever protocols are avialable at it's hand (at least, that's what I've is the issue with NetworkManager. WICD on the other hand scampers every little details it can get in order to connect you).

[23meg]

No call has been made on whether a 0.7 snapshot will be used or not. What I've been told by a developer (our own LaserJock (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=18410)) is that it will probably be decided around Feature Freeze (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeatureFreeze), but I have yet to ask Alexander Sack, the assignee of the relevant blueprint.

[Darrena]

No call has been made on whether a 0.7 snapshot will be used or not. What I've been told by a developer (our own LaserJock (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=18410)) is that it will probably be decided around Feature Freeze (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeatureFreeze), but I have yet to ask Alexander Sack, the assignee of the relevant blueprint.

I would love to see it make it, but Feature Freeze is Feb 14th so we are looking at 3 weeks.... While I have no say in the matter if 0.7 is not ready then it shouldn't be shipped. There will be unofficial packages rolled out when it is released or it can be backported for those who want it.

I am going to checkout the latest version from SVN and see how it looks, maybe things have gotten a lot closer...

[autocrosser]

I am running a SVN snapshot and find that it works well but it only recently reached feature parity with 0.6.5.

I wouldn't worry too much about this, 0.7 RIGHT NOW is NOT any better than 0.6.5.

Could you give the SVN address for us that would like to checkout the current snapshot? Also, the mailing list would be very interesting.....:)

[23meg]

http://www.gnome.org/projects/NetworkManager/developers/

[23meg]

NM 0.7 is now packaged for Hardy, and urgent feedback is needed. Please proceed to the testing thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4197818), and report your findings.

[jsmidt]

23meg, thanks for the heads up.

[mabovo]

Maybe should be closed this thread ?

[23meg]

23meg, thanks for the heads up.

You're welcome.

Maybe should be closed this thread ?

To clarify: NM 0.7 isn't in Hardy yet. Feedback in this test will help determine whether / when / how it should be pushed into Hardy in the development period. There's no guarantee it will be in the final release. Of course, putting your weight behind it and helping by (at least) testing will increase the likelihood of a healthy decision.

[High Roller]

I'll give it a test. Thanks for posting!
I'm interested in how this will play out

[mabovo]

No call has been made on whether a 0.7 snapshot will be used or not. What I've been told by a developer (our own LaserJock (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=18410)) is that it will probably be decided around Feature Freeze (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeatureFreeze), but I have yet to ask Alexander Sack, the assignee of the relevant blueprint.

Have heard any news about this ?

[whiprush]

asac has just uploaded this: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-March/008450.html

No network manager .7 this cycle probably.

[RussellGee]

I hope so but I doubt it, last time I tried it was about a week ago and "edit connections" never even worked.Still far too buggy plus we are miles by the feature freeze.

[23meg]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4331874&postcount=117

[High Roller]

Well, NetworkManager 0.6.6 has been released. Would this be workable for Hardy?

Release: 0.6.6 (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2008-March/msg00112.html)

* From: Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>
* To: NetworkManager-list gnome org
* Subject: Release: 0.6.6
* Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:41:00 -0500

Hi,

I've uploaded the 0.6.6 tarballs [1] and tagged 0.6.6 in SVN.
NetworkManager 0.6.6 is the latest stable version of NetworkManager;
development continues on the next major version, 0.7.

We bring you some awesome improvements over 0.6.5:

• A connection editor for Gnome
• Support for WiFi killswitches
• Better compatibility with various wireless and wired drivers
• 802.1x wired authentication support
• Better handling of VPN and WPA Enterprise security
• Better handling of weird SSIDs
• Populate the passphrase dialog with previous options
• Translation updates and piles of bug fixes

I expect fewer changes to the 0.6.x stable series from here on out. I
don't forsee any major new features in 0.6.x as we should be
concentrating our efforts on finishing 0.7.

Huge thanks again to Tambet Ingo who's been the other invisible hand of
NetworkManager World Domination over the past year.

Dan

[1] Tarballs

http://people.redhat.com/dcbw/NetworkManager/0.6.6/NetworkManager-0.6.6.tar.gz

412ed4db5d2db04285799c4303ddeeed NetworkManager-0.6.6.tar.gz
c5d0bcf7d262e1b600df6dad9f6f4baada293634 NetworkManager-0.6.6.tar.gz

http://people.redhat.com/dcbw/NetworkManager/0.6.6/nm-applet-0.6.6.tar.gz

16e95a3515e4255d034b14045a9effd5 nm-applet-0.6.6.tar.gz
da572c48ae9ecb5c9ba61c0ed8fd06567dcbc4e3 nm-applet-0.6.6.tar.gz

[zachtib]

Well, NetworkManager 0.6.6 has been released. Would this be workable for Hardy?

Release: 0.6.6 (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2008-March/msg00112.html)

well, 0.6.6rc2 is in now, so i imagine this will make it in

[elamericano]

Do you know if this builds in 7.10? I tried to build nm0.7, and I had to back out. I'd like to try nm0.6.6 in 7.10 while I'm waiting to 8.04.

Hmmm, too many numbers?

[mabovo]

With nm-0.6.6 I can get a stable connection with wireless card Atheros AR5418 and MadWifi.
That is impossible with NM-0.7 at least for now.

[simontol]

Tried NM0.7 in Foresgiht 2.0, it seems awesome to me!
I can get a UMTS/3G connection up in 3 seconds, without editing any config.

[WadiJM]

I just hope WPA2 to work and so I don't have to use Microsoft Windows when I'm at work. Even with WICD can't get thing to work and after reading 100000 how to's I'm where i started :( .