Re: NetworkManager instead of Wicd in ‘%desktop-services’?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Andy Wingo <address@hidden> skribis:

> It seems like all GNOME users are ready for this change.  I tried it out
> locally and it's quite nice.  Patch like this:
>
>     diff --git a/gnu/services/desktop.scm b/gnu/services/desktop.scm
>     index 0509bd8a4..f12fe78e5 100644
>     --- a/gnu/services/desktop.scm
>     +++ b/gnu/services/desktop.scm
>     @@ -810,7 +810,8 @@ with the administrator's password."
>      
>               ;; The D-Bus clique.
>               (avahi-service)
>     -         (wicd-service)
>     +         (service network-manager-service-type)
>     +         (service wpa-supplicant-service-type)
>               (udisks-service)
>               (upower-service)
>               (accountsservice-service)

For GNOME it’s definitely better than Wicd.

> The network manager command also seems to include `nmtui' for a
> curses-based interface, and `nmcli' for a command-line interface.  I
> don't know if there's an applet or something like that, but of course
> that could be installed as part of the xfce-desktop-service package.
> Seems to me like network manager could be a good default for Guix
> desktop systems.

I went as far as switching to NM on my GNOME-less laptop.  ;-)  nmtui
works well for me, and overall NM works better than Wicd (it reconnects
more reliably and more quickly to wireless networks AFAICS.)

A GTK+ interface to NM similar to that of Wicd (i.e., not the GNOME
applet) would also be welcome; does anyone know of such a thing?

Overall, NM seems to work better than Wicd, whether or not one uses
GNOME.  Even if the issue Chris Marusich mentioned still applies, I
think switching to NM in ‘%desktop-services’ would be a net win.

Are there objections to this?

Ludo’.