Port request

[David DEMELIER]

2010/5/26 Matthias Andree <mandree at freebsd.org>:
> Am 26.05.2010 14:19, schrieb Jesse Smith:
>> I was told that requests for new ports should be submitted here. There's
>> one tool which I would like to see brought into the Ports system and
>> that's Network Manager
>> (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Tools/NetworkManager)
>>
>> It's the only networking tool I've found so far which will properly
>> handle my Novatel mobile modem and I would really like to be able to
>> make use of the modem while running FreeBSD.
>
> Hi Jesse,
>
> Network Manager (NM) will just automate steps you can do with other means, too.
> It is not doing magic of any kind, and chances are your modem needs firmware
> that is available for Linux but not for FreeBSD, but I know nothing about your
> Novatel device.
>
> Regarding a FreeBSD port:
>
> (a) NM needs major porting efforts, and is an open, non-trivial, project of the
> GNOME team, see <http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/docs/volunteer.html>
>
> (b) I personally find that NM is an abomination that - particularly on Laptops -
> causes more problems than it could possibly solve for me.
>    I routinely deinstall NetworkManager from openSUSE, Fedora, and Ubuntu Linux
> distributions, because it frequently fails to configure WPA2-Enterprise with
> EAP-TLS or EAP-TTLS, fails to detect online state (making several applications
> start in offline mode or refuse to even attempt to connect), fails to configure
> hidden 802.11 (WiFi/WLAN) networks, and causes other artifacts I don't have
> without NM.
>
> I'd personally also say Network Manager needs upstream bugfixing much more than
> a port. Haven't tried Fedora 13 "Goddard" yet though.
>

I agree, personally I would prefer a wpa_supplicant / dhclient
graphical user interface instead of the sucky NetworkManager. For the
moment there is sysutils/wifimgr iirc but it's a quite unstable.

wpa_supplicant does everything, scanning for access points
automatically even you don't have X running, all WPA means of
associations, it's just perfect.

-- 
Demelier David