Future of KNM/PNM with NM 0.9

[Raymond Wooninck]

Will, Sebas, Lamarque,

I indicated yesterday to Vincent Untz that he could push NM 0.9 into Factory
and that we would apply the patches from Dan Williams.

It seems however that a different direction has been chosen for the current
KDE trunk (KDE:Unstable:SC). As soon as I update this repo to the current
version, then kdebase-workspace will no longer build the Solid support for
Network Management. This literally means that the plasmoid-networkmanagement
no longer will show any network devices.

In practice this would mean that users are forced to start using the NM-applet
if they want to run KDE:Unstable:SC together with Factory.

As that there is absolutely no indication yet when KNM/PNM will support NM
0.9, I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to create the option that if
kdebase-workspace detects NM0.9 to activate the patch from Dan Williams to
have at least some support. I know that it wasn't optimal, but it was
definitely way better than nothing.

I would like to know which way we are really going as that I have to prepare
KDE:Unstable:SC also for NM0.9 and it would be very funny to start putting in
dependencies to de-install PNM and install NetworkManager-gnome. However at
the moment, this seems to be the direction we are going.

Regards

Raymond

[Lamarque Vieira Souza]

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Will, Sebas, Lamarque,

Hi,

Post by Raymond Wooninck
I indicated yesterday to Vincent Untz that he could push NM 0.9 into
Factory and that we would apply the patches from Dan Williams.
It seems however that a different direction has been chosen for the current
KDE trunk (KDE:Unstable:SC). As soon as I update this repo to the current
version, then kdebase-workspace will no longer build the Solid support for
Network Management. This literally means that the
plasmoid-networkmanagement no longer will show any network devices.

The current Solid::Control::Network* classes from kde-workspace does not
compile against NM-0.9, so I changed the cmake config file to do not try to
compile against NM-0.9. You can compile them against NM-0.8 and use it with
NM-0.9, but several things are not going to work and I have heard that users
keep getting bogus notifications from
Solid::Control::NetworkManager::notifier() when you do that.

Post by Raymond Wooninck
In practice this would mean that users are forced to start using the
NM-applet if they want to run KDE:Unstable:SC together with Factory.
As that there is absolutely no indication yet when KNM/PNM will support NM
0.9, I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to create the option that if
kdebase-workspace detects NM0.9 to activate the patch from Dan Williams to
have at least some support. I know that it wasn't optimal, but it was
definitely way better than nothing.

Which patch is that? Is it a patch against NM or KDE's Solid?

Post by Raymond Wooninck
I would like to know which way we are really going as that I have to
prepare KDE:Unstable:SC also for NM0.9 and it would be very funny to start
putting in dependencies to de-install PNM and install
NetworkManager-gnome. However at the moment, this seems to be the
direction we are going.

I, for one, am not working on NM-0.9 support for now. I created a new
branch for networkmanagement (Plasma NM) in
git://anongit.kde.org/networkmanagement/nm09 for anyone wanting to work on
NM-0.9 support. I usually just cherry-pick commits from master branch and fix
the conflicts that arises to keep the code compiling. I have never added
NM-0.9 specific features nor have ever tested the code. The code in there
works only with NM-0.9 and when compiled against the NM-0.8 Solid's backend,
weird, I know.

I have a lot of other things to work on NM-0.8 support and I am starting
a 3-months paid job next week so I am going to spend little time with KDE
during that period. I really like to work on KDE and Plasma NM in special, but
I am unemployed since last year so I need that job.

The current situation is like this: someone must create a new backend
directory git://anongit.kde.org/kde-workspace/solid/networkmanager-0.9 and
update it to work with NM-0.9. One big problem is that the interface classes
in git://anongit.kde.org/kde-workspace/libs/solid/control/*/* does not
completely fit with the new NM-0.9 specification. So we could:

1. Create the NM-0.9 backend in networkmanagement (Plasma NM) repository
instead of kde-workspace. We would have to creat a new namespace different
from Solid::Control to do not clash with the old backends for NetworkManager
and ModemManager.

2. Create the NM-0.9 backend in kde-workspace repository and just drop
support for what do not fit. I guess that would keep the NM-0.9 backend on par
with the NM-0.8 backend in reggarding NM-0.9 support. This would means we
would have to add changes to the backend during KDE's feature freeze and maybe
during KDE SC 4.7.x life cycle. KDE rarely do that.

I prefer option #1. Anyway, that is a big task and I really do not have
time for it now and I am going to have even less free time in the next months.
I really need help, a lot of help.

[Raymond Wooninck]

Hi Lamarque,

I understand your position and the email was not only directed to you. Fedora
(Dan Williams) did two things in order to keep PNM working with NM 0.9. The
first thing is that he created a compatibility layer (the so called f15-patch)
to keep changes minimal.

Furthermore he created two patches for KDE. One is for kde-workspace and the
other one is for PNM. Both of them are in the f15 branch of NM. With these two
patches PNM is working. I have to admit it is far from ideal, but at least
things seems to work. Network Connections are reported, Existing user
connections can be used, etc.

As that openSUSE:Factory is moving to NM 0.9 I applied these two patches
against my own build of kdebase-workspace and PNM with the above mentioned
result.

I have now created a patch for kdebase-workspace that reverts your patch to
the disable the build of the NetworkManager backend, which I guess I will use
for the KDE:Unstable:SC repo.

I just wanted to raise the attention to this point as that it seems a lot of
new stuff is being build for a NetworkManager version that will be soon out of
support and it looks like that KDE 4.7 has to be able to work with NM 0.9

Regards

Raymond

Post by Lamarque Vieira Souza

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Will, Sebas, Lamarque,

Hi,

Post by Raymond Wooninck
I indicated yesterday to Vincent Untz that he could push NM 0.9 into
Factory and that we would apply the patches from Dan Williams.
It seems however that a different direction has been chosen for the
current KDE trunk (KDE:Unstable:SC). As soon as I update this repo to
the current version, then kdebase-workspace will no longer build the
Solid support for Network Management. This literally means that the
plasmoid-networkmanagement no longer will show any network devices.

The current Solid::Control::Network* classes from kde-workspace does not
compile against NM-0.9, so I changed the cmake config file to do not try to
compile against NM-0.9. You can compile them against NM-0.8 and use it with
NM-0.9, but several things are not going to work and I have heard that users
keep getting bogus notifications from
Solid::Control::NetworkManager::notifier() when you do that.

Post by Raymond Wooninck
In practice this would mean that users are forced to start using the
NM-applet if they want to run KDE:Unstable:SC together with Factory.
As that there is absolutely no indication yet when KNM/PNM will support
NM 0.9, I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to create the option
that if kdebase-workspace detects NM0.9 to activate the patch from Dan
Williams to have at least some support. I know that it wasn't optimal,
but it was definitely way better than nothing.

Which patch is that? Is it a patch against NM or KDE's Solid?

Post by Raymond Wooninck
I would like to know which way we are really going as that I have to
prepare KDE:Unstable:SC also for NM0.9 and it would be very funny to
start putting in dependencies to de-install PNM and install
NetworkManager-gnome. However at the moment, this seems to be the
direction we are going.

I, for one, am not working on NM-0.9 support for now. I created a new
branch for networkmanagement (Plasma NM) in
git://anongit.kde.org/networkmanagement/nm09 for anyone wanting to work on
NM-0.9 support. I usually just cherry-pick commits from master branch and
fix the conflicts that arises to keep the code compiling. I have never
added NM-0.9 specific features nor have ever tested the code. The code in
there works only with NM-0.9 and when compiled against the NM-0.8 Solid's
backend, weird, I know.
I have a lot of other things to work on NM-0.8 support and I am starting
a 3-months paid job next week so I am going to spend little time with KDE
during that period. I really like to work on KDE and Plasma NM in special,
but I am unemployed since last year so I need that job.
The current situation is like this: someone must create a new backend
directory git://anongit.kde.org/kde-workspace/solid/networkmanager-0.9 and
update it to work with NM-0.9. One big problem is that the interface classes
in git://anongit.kde.org/kde-workspace/libs/solid/control/*/* does not
1. Create the NM-0.9 backend in networkmanagement (Plasma NM) repository
instead of kde-workspace. We would have to creat a new namespace different
from Solid::Control to do not clash with the old backends for NetworkManager
and ModemManager.
2. Create the NM-0.9 backend in kde-workspace repository and just drop
support for what do not fit. I guess that would keep the NM-0.9 backend on
par with the NM-0.8 backend in reggarding NM-0.9 support. This would means
we would have to add changes to the backend during KDE's feature freeze and
maybe during KDE SC 4.7.x life cycle. KDE rarely do that.
I prefer option #1. Anyway, that is a big task and I really do not have
time for it now and I am going to have even less free time in the next
months. I really need help, a lot of help.

[Lamarque Vieira Souza]

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Hi Lamarque,

Hi,

Post by Raymond Wooninck
I understand your position and the email was not only directed to you.
Fedora (Dan Williams) did two things in order to keep PNM working with NM
0.9. The first thing is that he created a compatibility layer (the so
called f15-patch) to keep changes minimal.
Furthermore he created two patches for KDE. One is for kde-workspace and
the other one is for PNM. Both of them are in the f15 branch of NM. With
these two patches PNM is working. I have to admit it is far from ideal,
but at least things seems to work. Network Connections are reported,
Existing user connections can be used, etc.

What is the URL of the f15 branch?

Post by Raymond Wooninck
As that openSUSE:Factory is moving to NM 0.9 I applied these two patches
against my own build of kdebase-workspace and PNM with the above mentioned
result.
I have now created a patch for kdebase-workspace that reverts your patch to
the disable the build of the NetworkManager backend, which I guess I will
use for the KDE:Unstable:SC repo.
I just wanted to raise the attention to this point as that it seems a lot
of new stuff is being build for a NetworkManager version that will be soon
out of support and it looks like that KDE 4.7 has to be able to work with
NM 0.9

I can try working on it but the task is too big for me alone to do and as
I said I am going to have less free time in the next months. Somebody should
really step up to help or it will not be ready by SC 4.7 release date. I still
have two fixes to push to Plasma NM before I can start working on nm09 branch.

All the stuff I am commiting are also valid for the nm09 branch. Some of
them, not even counting the crash fixes, are very important for the NM-0.9
support such as the system connection patch and KAuth (Policy Kit) support,
without this last one only root is able to edit system connections, which as
you know is the only connection type in NM-0.9.

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Regards
Raymond

Post by Lamarque Vieira Souza

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Will, Sebas, Lamarque,

Hi,

Post by Raymond Wooninck
I indicated yesterday to Vincent Untz that he could push NM 0.9 into
Factory and that we would apply the patches from Dan Williams.
It seems however that a different direction has been chosen for the
current KDE trunk (KDE:Unstable:SC). As soon as I update this repo to
the current version, then kdebase-workspace will no longer build the
Solid support for Network Management. This literally means that the
plasmoid-networkmanagement no longer will show any network devices.

The current Solid::Control::Network* classes from kde-workspace does not
compile against NM-0.9, so I changed the cmake config file to do not try
to compile against NM-0.9. You can compile them against NM-0.8 and use
it with NM-0.9, but several things are not going to work and I have
heard that users keep getting bogus notifications from
Solid::Control::NetworkManager::notifier() when you do that.

Post by Raymond Wooninck
In practice this would mean that users are forced to start using the
NM-applet if they want to run KDE:Unstable:SC together with Factory.
As that there is absolutely no indication yet when KNM/PNM will
support NM 0.9, I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to create the
option that if kdebase-workspace detects NM0.9 to activate the patch
from Dan Williams to have at least some support. I know that it wasn't
optimal, but it was definitely way better than nothing.

Which patch is that? Is it a patch against NM or KDE's Solid?

Post by Raymond Wooninck
I would like to know which way we are really going as that I have to
prepare KDE:Unstable:SC also for NM0.9 and it would be very funny to
start putting in dependencies to de-install PNM and install
NetworkManager-gnome. However at the moment, this seems to be the
direction we are going.

I, for one, am not working on NM-0.9 support for now. I created a new
branch for networkmanagement (Plasma NM) in
git://anongit.kde.org/networkmanagement/nm09 for anyone wanting to work
on NM-0.9 support. I usually just cherry-pick commits from master branch
and fix the conflicts that arises to keep the code compiling. I have
never added NM-0.9 specific features nor have ever tested the code. The
code in there works only with NM-0.9 and when compiled against the
NM-0.8 Solid's backend, weird, I know.
I have a lot of other things to work on NM-0.8 support and I am starting
a 3-months paid job next week so I am going to spend little time with KDE
during that period. I really like to work on KDE and Plasma NM in
special, but I am unemployed since last year so I need that job.
The current situation is like this: someone must create a new backend
directory git://anongit.kde.org/kde-workspace/solid/networkmanager-0.9
and update it to work with NM-0.9. One big problem is that the interface
classes in git://anongit.kde.org/kde-workspace/libs/solid/control/*/*
does not
1. Create the NM-0.9 backend in networkmanagement (Plasma NM) repository
instead of kde-workspace. We would have to creat a new namespace
different from Solid::Control to do not clash with the old backends for
NetworkManager and ModemManager.
2. Create the NM-0.9 backend in kde-workspace repository and just drop
support for what do not fit. I guess that would keep the NM-0.9 backend
on par with the NM-0.8 backend in reggarding NM-0.9 support. This would
means we would have to add changes to the backend during KDE's feature
freeze and maybe during KDE SC 4.7.x life cycle. KDE rarely do that.
I prefer option #1. Anyway, that is a big task and I really do not have
time for it now and I am going to have even less free time in the next
months. I really need help, a lot of help.

_______________________________________________
kde-networkmanager mailing list
kde-networkmanager at kde.org
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-networkmanager

[Rajeesh K Nambiar]

Hi Lamarque,

Post by Lamarque Vieira Souza
What is the URL of the f15 branch?

I guess this is the relevant branch -
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/log/?h=f15

[Jaroslav Reznik]

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Will, Sebas, Lamarque,

Hi.

Post by Raymond Wooninck
I indicated yesterday to Vincent Untz that he could push NM 0.9 into
Factory and that we would apply the patches from Dan Williams.
It seems however that a different direction has been chosen for the current
KDE trunk (KDE:Unstable:SC). As soon as I update this repo to the current
version, then kdebase-workspace will no longer build the Solid support for
Network Management. This literally means that the
plasmoid-networkmanagement no longer will show any network devices.
In practice this would mean that users are forced to start using the
NM-applet if they want to run KDE:Unstable:SC together with Factory.

You can use our kdebase-workspace patch [1] but it's temporary solution and it's
really ugly nm 08, 09 hybrid. We're still fighting it as we were forced to use it
:( I've updated it on Friday to fix spurious "Networking system disabled" message
caused by using enums from NetworkManager.h 0.9 as 0.8 (with different meaning).

It's really far from ideal, I hope I'll find some time now to help with nm 0.9,
Lukas is playing with his own implementation, maybe we can use his code as basis
for nm-qt 0.9 library (that can be used from KNM).

Jaroslav

Post by Raymond Wooninck
As that there is absolutely no indication yet when KNM/PNM will support NM
0.9, I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to create the option that if
kdebase-workspace detects NM0.9 to activate the patch from Dan Williams to
have at least some support. I know that it wasn't optimal, but it was
definitely way better than nothing.
I would like to know which way we are really going as that I have to
prepare KDE:Unstable:SC also for NM0.9 and it would be very funny to start
putting in dependencies to de-install PNM and install
NetworkManager-gnome. However at the moment, this seems to be the
direction we are going.
Regards

[1] http://tinyurl.com/6gzv4ye

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Raymond
_______________________________________________
kde-networkmanager mailing list
kde-networkmanager at kde.org
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-networkmanager

[Raymond Wooninck]

Hi Jaroslav,

Post by Jaroslav Reznik
You can use our kdebase-workspace patch [1] but it's temporary solution and
it's really ugly nm 08, 09 hybrid. We're still fighting it as we were
forced to use it
:( I've updated it on Friday to fix spurious "Networking system disabled"
:message

Where can I find the updated patch ? The f15 branch of NM0.9 didn't deliver
me your update (at least it didn't seem to have been updated).

Post by Jaroslav Reznik
It's really far from ideal, I hope I'll find some time now to help with nm
0.9, Lukas is playing with his own implementation, maybe we can use his
code as basis for nm-qt 0.9 library (that can be used from KNM).

I guess at the moment the best thing we can do is to deliver at least
something that can work with NM 0.9 (even by using the f15 branch). Due to
Gnome 3, NM 0.9 is being pushed and not everybody has the choice to stick with
NM 0.8.

Thanks

Regards

Raymond

[Jaroslav Reznik]

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Hi Jaroslav,

Post by Jaroslav Reznik
You can use our kdebase-workspace patch [1] but it's temporary solution
and it's really ugly nm 08, 09 hybrid. We're still fighting it as we
were forced to use it
:( I've updated it on Friday to fix spurious "Networking system disabled"
:message

Where can I find the updated patch ? The f15 branch of NM0.9 didn't
deliver me your update (at least it didn't seem to have been updated).

It's in Fedora package repository, kdebase-workspace component [1]. There are
still some reported bugs, one has to be fixed in NM compat code itself, out of my
hands unfortunatelly.

Post by Raymond Wooninck

Post by Jaroslav Reznik
It's really far from ideal, I hope I'll find some time now to help with
nm 0.9, Lukas is playing with his own implementation, maybe we can use
his code as basis for nm-qt 0.9 library (that can be used from KNM).

I guess at the moment the best thing we can do is to deliver at least
something that can work with NM 0.9 (even by using the f15 branch). Due to
Gnome 3, NM 0.9 is being pushed and not everybody has the choice to stick
with NM 0.8.

If you can stick with nm-applet for Gnome 3, do it ;) As I heard the Shell
replacement is not very mature now. We had to update, now everything is broken.
But it's just network, who wants network these days? :)))

[1] http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/gitweb/?p=kdebase-workspace.git

Jaroslav

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Thanks
Regards
Raymond
_______________________________________________
kde-networkmanager mailing list
kde-networkmanager at kde.org
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-networkmanager

[Sebastian Kügler]

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Will, Sebas, Lamarque,
I indicated yesterday to Vincent Untz that he could push NM 0.9 into Factory
and that we would apply the patches from Dan Williams.

I think that's premature. We need 0.8 in Factory until we fully support 0.9.

Cheers,

[Raymond Wooninck]

Post by Sebastian Kügler

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Will, Sebas, Lamarque,
I indicated yesterday to Vincent Untz that he could push NM 0.9 into
Factory and that we would apply the patches from Dan Williams.

I think that's premature. We need 0.8 in Factory until we fully support 0.9.

Hi Sebas,

Well, I guess that it comes down in the end to cripple Gnome 3.0 or to cripple
KDE Network Manager.

Vincent indicated that they require NM 0.9 because of the enhancements to the
Gnome desktop. KDE however has a crippled KNM/PNM with NM0.9, but at least
can work.

Based on the progress of Gnome 3, I don't think that it would be realistic to
expect that the whole world will wait with NM 0.9 until KDE is ready.

As said before for me it is strange to see that still a lot of effort is being
put into enhancing KNM/PNM for the usage with NM 0.8.

Just my five cents.

Raymond

[Sebastian Kügler]

Hey,

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Well, I guess that it comes down in the end to cripple Gnome 3.0 or to
cripple KDE Network Manager.

Yes, essentially the two become mutually exclusive. I'm not happy with it
either, but I lack time and energy to keep chasing NetworkManager. The 0.7
transition was already painful, now this one seems to double the pain.

To be plain honest, I'm much more concerned about the user experience in
Plasma than the one in GNOME3. Sure it would be nice if it would just work
with both, but the NetworkManager devs decided that compability is not
important to them and have moved on.

This is a problem across multiple distros btw, the RedHat people have the same
problem, so they started working on 0.9 support. To my knowledge, that work
isn't finished as of yet, so we don't have much options.

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Vincent indicated that they require NM 0.9 because of the enhancements to
the Gnome desktop. KDE however has a crippled KNM/PNM with NM0.9, but at
least can work.

... for a very limited amount of use-cases, and without any kind of serious
testing. Most likely case is that it just will break, and that reporting bugs
is useless because the code is too much in flux and the problem is not about
knowing bugs, but about finding the time to fix them.

Post by Raymond Wooninck
Based on the progress of Gnome 3, I don't think that it would be realistic
to expect that the whole world will wait with NM 0.9 until KDE is ready.

I think it's at least reasonable to expect to not break network management
setup on your default desktop.

A problem here is that it's simply very unrealistic to have full and tested
support available without any kind of grace period, especially with an API
that changes so often, in so fundamental ways.

The delays caused by that are something we'll have to live with.

Post by Raymond Wooninck
As said before for me it is strange to see that still a lot of effort is
being put into enhancing KNM/PNM for the usage with NM 0.8.

I'm not surprised, it's what most people are currently using. And I'd rather
have one stable system than two or three that all have major issues. If that
means sticking to 0.8 until 0.9 support is rock-solid, I don't mind.

Bottom line: whoever wants 0.9 support will have to pitch in with patches.

Cheers,