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

[Mark H Weaver]

address@hidden (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> 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.

There's a 'network-manager-applet' package, already in Guix.  I've used
it with Xfce in the past, and it seemed to work well.

>> Seems to me like network manager could be a good default for Guix
>> desktop systems.

Agreed.

> 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.

I think we should do this.

       Mark