[gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[gottlieb]

At home I use a wired connection so did notice the following problem
until I traveled and tried to connect wirelessly.
The problem must have started sometime within the past month.

If I have wicd started by systemd, i.e.
systemctl enable wicd
The wired network is started fine but not the wireless.  Instead, I see
in the systemd journal

wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wired  error: No
such file or directory
wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wireless  error: No
such file or directory

If I instead systemctl disable wicd, reboot, and then manually type
wpa_supplicant -i wireless -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
it works.

Indeed after I have booted I can start wicd and cannot get the error
above, but the actual behavior is not consistent.

My system is ~amd64, profile gnome/systemd

My wireless driver is from the package broadcom-sta (wl)

thanks in advance for any help.
allan

Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 4:52 PM,  <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
> At home I use a wired connection so did notice the following problem
> until I traveled and tried to connect wirelessly.
> The problem must have started sometime within the past month.
>
> If I have wicd started by systemd, i.e.
> systemctl enable wicd
> The wired network is started fine but not the wireless.  Instead, I see
> in the systemd journal
>
> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wired  error: No
> such file or directory
> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wireless  error: No
> such file or directory
>
> If I instead systemctl disable wicd, reboot, and then manually type
> wpa_supplicant -i wireless -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
> it works.
>
> Indeed after I have booted I can start wicd and cannot get the error
> above, but the actual behavior is not consistent.
>
> My system is ~amd64, profile gnome/systemd
>
> My wireless driver is from the package broadcom-sta (wl)

I have never used wicd, so I can't say exactly what it's the problem;
but I was under the impression that wicd is basically dead. Its last
release was more than a year and a half ago.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[wraeth]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 13/12/13 09:47, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 4:52 PM,  <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>> At home I use a wired connection so did notice the following problem 
>> until I traveled and tried to connect wirelessly. The problem must have
>> started sometime within the past month.
>> 
>> If I have wicd started by systemd, i.e. systemctl enable wicd The wired
>> network is started fine but not the wireless.  Instead, I see in the
>> systemd journal
>> 
>> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wired  error: No 
>> such file or directory wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global
>> ctrl_ifname: wireless  error: No such file or directory
>> 
>> If I instead systemctl disable wicd, reboot, and then manually type 
>> wpa_supplicant -i wireless -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -B 
>> it works.
>> 
>> Indeed after I have booted I can start wicd and cannot get the error 
>> above, but the actual behavior is not consistent.
>> 
>> My system is ~amd64, profile gnome/systemd
>> 
>> My wireless driver is from the package broadcom-sta (wl)
> 
> I have never used wicd, so I can't say exactly what it's the problem; but I
> was under the impression that wicd is basically dead. Its last release was
> more than a year and a half ago.
> 
> Regards.
> 

I don't use wicd (or systemd) either, but you could have a look at what the
systemd unit is attempting to run (assuming it isn't one of it's "special"
type of units).  Systemd units are just plain-text files.

Default unit location is
  /usr/lib/systemd/system
(or you could try
  locate wicd.service

and the parameter you're looking for is ExecStart.

- -- 
wraeth
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Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[gottlieb]

On Thu, Dec 12 2013, wraeth@privatdemail.net wrote:

> On 13/12/13 09:47, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 4:52 PM,  <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>>> At home I use a wired connection so did notice the following problem 
>>> until I traveled and tried to connect wirelessly. The problem must have
>>> started sometime within the past month.
>>> 
>>> If I have wicd started by systemd, i.e. systemctl enable wicd The wired
>>> network is started fine but not the wireless.  Instead, I see in the
>>> systemd journal
>>> 
>>> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wired  error: No 
>>> such file or directory wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global
>>> ctrl_ifname: wireless  error: No such file or directory
>>> 
>>> If I instead systemctl disable wicd, reboot, and then manually type 
>>> wpa_supplicant -i wireless -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -B 
>>> it works.
>>> 
>>> Indeed after I have booted I can start wicd and cannot get the error 
>>> above, but the actual behavior is not consistent.
>>> 
>>> My system is ~amd64, profile gnome/systemd
>>> 
>>> My wireless driver is from the package broadcom-sta (wl)
>> 
>> I have never used wicd, so I can't say exactly what it's the problem; but I
>> was under the impression that wicd is basically dead. Its last release was
>> more than a year and a half ago.
>> 
>> Regards.
>> 
>
> I don't use wicd (or systemd) either, but you could have a look at what the
> systemd unit is attempting to run (assuming it isn't one of it's "special"
> type of units).  Systemd units are just plain-text files.
>
> Default unit location is
>   /usr/lib/systemd/system
> (or you could try
>   locate wicd.service
>
> and the parameter you're looking for is ExecStart.

thanks but I had done that and the command is simply
/usr/sbin/wicd --no-daemon
Perhaps relevant is  Type=dbus

Canek points out that wicd has had no new releases.  Perhaps I should
switch to networkmanager.  I will try that tomorrow.

Thank you both,
allan

Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[Alan McKinnon]

On 13/12/2013 00:47, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 4:52 PM,  <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>> At home I use a wired connection so did notice the following problem
>> until I traveled and tried to connect wirelessly.
>> The problem must have started sometime within the past month.
>>
>> If I have wicd started by systemd, i.e.
>> systemctl enable wicd
>> The wired network is started fine but not the wireless.  Instead, I see
>> in the systemd journal
>>
>> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wired  error: No
>> such file or directory
>> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wireless  error: No
>> such file or directory
>>
>> If I instead systemctl disable wicd, reboot, and then manually type
>> wpa_supplicant -i wireless -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
>> it works.
>>
>> Indeed after I have booted I can start wicd and cannot get the error
>> above, but the actual behavior is not consistent.
>>
>> My system is ~amd64, profile gnome/systemd
>>
>> My wireless driver is from the package broadcom-sta (wl)
> 
> I have never used wicd, so I can't say exactly what it's the problem;
> but I was under the impression that wicd is basically dead. Its last
> release was more than a year and a half ago.
> 
> Regards.
> 

release more than a year and a half ago != dead

the code the user has still works whether the devs adds upstream commits
or not.
It hasn't bit-rooted, is not incompatible with everything else and
doesn't have outstanding security bugs with little chance of being fixed.

So what's the problem?

By that logic, zenity needs to have died 5 years ago but it's still around

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 1:59 AM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13/12/2013 00:47, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 4:52 PM,  <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>>> At home I use a wired connection so did notice the following problem
>>> until I traveled and tried to connect wirelessly.
>>> The problem must have started sometime within the past month.
>>>
>>> If I have wicd started by systemd, i.e.
>>> systemctl enable wicd
>>> The wired network is started fine but not the wireless.  Instead, I see
>>> in the systemd journal
>>>
>>> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wired  error: No
>>> such file or directory
>>> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wireless  error: No
>>> such file or directory
>>>
>>> If I instead systemctl disable wicd, reboot, and then manually type
>>> wpa_supplicant -i wireless -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
>>> it works.
>>>
>>> Indeed after I have booted I can start wicd and cannot get the error
>>> above, but the actual behavior is not consistent.
>>>
>>> My system is ~amd64, profile gnome/systemd
>>>
>>> My wireless driver is from the package broadcom-sta (wl)
>>
>> I have never used wicd, so I can't say exactly what it's the problem;
>> but I was under the impression that wicd is basically dead. Its last
>> release was more than a year and a half ago.
>>
>> Regards.
>>
>
> release more than a year and a half ago != dead

In this particular case I think it is.

> the code the user has still works whether the devs adds upstream commits
> or not.

Well, apparently not [1].

> It hasn't bit-rooted, is not incompatible with everything else and
> doesn't have outstanding security bugs with little chance of being fixed.

Checking [1] and [2], I would think that wicd satisfies (or *at least*
starts to satisfy) the very definition of bitrot.

> So what's the problem?

If the code worked perfectly, none. But apparently it doesn't; I don't
know, I don't use it myself. The usual signs of bitrot are there,
though.

> By that logic, zenity needs to have died 5 years ago but it's still around

That's a really bad example. Zenity didn't had a 3.10 release, but it
had a 3.8 [3] in march, so it's 9 months since the last release, not
18. Also, now zenity has a 3_10 tag in git [4]. And lastly, its lats
commit was 6 days ago, and it had several bugfixes committed not three
weeks ago [5]. On the other hand, wicd only has had translations
committed in the last 6 *months* [6], and the "development" branch for
2.0 hasn't been touched in *3 years* [7].

This is only after a quick search through wicd and zenity repositories
(and Gentoo bugzilla). Perhaps wicd has reached perfection and it
doesn't need an upstream since everything simply works and there is
nothing else to do with it. That would be a first in software history,
though.

I would simply not use it, and I will recommend any of its users to
change to either NetworkManager [8] or connman [9], like pronto.

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/wicd/+bugs
[2] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486440
[3] ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/zenity/3.8/
[4] https://git.gnome.org/browse/zenity/tag/?id=ZENITY_3_10_0
[5] https://git.gnome.org/browse/zenity/log/
[6] https://code.launchpad.net/~wicd-devel/wicd/experimental
[7] https://code.launchpad.net/~wicd-devel/wicd/aqua
[8] http://projects.gnome.org/NetworkManager/
[9] https://connman.net/

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[Alan McKinnon]

On 13/12/2013 14:57, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 1:59 AM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 13/12/2013 00:47, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
>>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 4:52 PM,  <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>> At home I use a wired connection so did notice the following problem
>>>> until I traveled and tried to connect wirelessly.
>>>> The problem must have started sometime within the past month.
>>>>
>>>> If I have wicd started by systemd, i.e.
>>>> systemctl enable wicd
>>>> The wired network is started fine but not the wireless.  Instead, I see
>>>> in the systemd journal
>>>>
>>>> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wired  error: No
>>>> such file or directory
>>>> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wireless  error: No
>>>> such file or directory
>>>>
>>>> If I instead systemctl disable wicd, reboot, and then manually type
>>>> wpa_supplicant -i wireless -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
>>>> it works.
>>>>
>>>> Indeed after I have booted I can start wicd and cannot get the error
>>>> above, but the actual behavior is not consistent.
>>>>
>>>> My system is ~amd64, profile gnome/systemd
>>>>
>>>> My wireless driver is from the package broadcom-sta (wl)
>>>
>>> I have never used wicd, so I can't say exactly what it's the problem;
>>> but I was under the impression that wicd is basically dead. Its last
>>> release was more than a year and a half ago.
>>>
>>> Regards.
>>>
>>
>> release more than a year and a half ago != dead
> 
> In this particular case I think it is.
> 
>> the code the user has still works whether the devs adds upstream commits
>> or not.
> 
> Well, apparently not [1].
> 
>> It hasn't bit-rooted, is not incompatible with everything else and
>> doesn't have outstanding security bugs with little chance of being fixed.
> 
> Checking [1] and [2], I would think that wicd satisfies (or *at least*
> starts to satisfy) the very definition of bitrot.
> 
>> So what's the problem?
> 
> If the code worked perfectly, none. But apparently it doesn't; I don't
> know, I don't use it myself. The usual signs of bitrot are there,
> though.
> 
>> By that logic, zenity needs to have died 5 years ago but it's still around
> 
> That's a really bad example. Zenity didn't had a 3.10 release, but it
> had a 3.8 [3] in march, so it's 9 months since the last release, not
> 18. Also, now zenity has a 3_10 tag in git [4]. And lastly, its lats
> commit was 6 days ago, and it had several bugfixes committed not three
> weeks ago [5]. On the other hand, wicd only has had translations
> committed in the last 6 *months* [6], and the "development" branch for
> 2.0 hasn't been touched in *3 years* [7].
> 
> This is only after a quick search through wicd and zenity repositories
> (and Gentoo bugzilla). Perhaps wicd has reached perfection and it
> doesn't need an upstream since everything simply works and there is
> nothing else to do with it. That would be a first in software history,
> though.
> 
> I would simply not use it, and I will recommend any of its users to
> change to either NetworkManager [8] or connman [9], like pronto.
> 
> [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/wicd/+bugs
> [2] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486440
> [3] ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/zenity/3.8/
> [4] https://git.gnome.org/browse/zenity/tag/?id=ZENITY_3_10_0
> [5] https://git.gnome.org/browse/zenity/log/
> [6] https://code.launchpad.net/~wicd-devel/wicd/experimental
> [7] https://code.launchpad.net/~wicd-devel/wicd/aqua
> [8] http://projects.gnome.org/NetworkManager/
> [9] https://connman.net/
> 
> Regards.
> 


I'm not convinced, your evidence is rather under-whelming.

Yes, wicd is currently in need of a maintainer and some simple fixes per
your [1] are not being applied. But on the whole the code works for the
majority of folks, I can't find any outstanding CVEs and I don't see how
you can qualify this as needing to not be used. YMMV, yes, but don't use
it? Nah, I can't see a legitimate case.

As for zenity, it appears someone has stepped up to the plate in recent
months, but I clearly recall it being mostly abandoned for years. I
needed it for winetricks as the alternative kdialog is just ... poor.
But zenity couldn't be gotten to work at all. If we'd applied your POV
towards wicd to zenity, see where I'm going?

As for network-manager, we have years of history on this very mailing
list of people reporting problems getting it to work in anything but
simple straightforward cases. In so many of these cases, switching to
wicd fixed the issue. In all that time, you are the only person that
comes to mind often claiming that nm works great for them. Based on that
alone, I classify nm as "meh software" which might work but all too
often doesn't.

As for connman, it works great on my phone but my limited experience
with it on desktops was similar to nm.

Admittedly both nm and connman might have improved by leaps and bounds
in recent months and perhaps they are now awesome, but I don't see it.

Just call wicd for what it really is at this point: ymmv



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[Bruce Hill]

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 04:47:03PM -0600, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> 
> I have never used wicd, so I can't say exactly what it's the problem;
> but I was under the impression that wicd is basically dead. Its last
> release was more than a year and a half ago.

I haven't read the other posts after this one, so apologies in advance if this
has been answered.

In my previous distro I worked on wicd with Adam and David (upstream). Adam
left the project about 2 years ago. David asked for help about a year ago, and
no one came. Right now wicd can't use nl80211, and that's the future. It would
need extensive rebuilding, and it appears wicd is going to die (though it's
not just yet). David is not actively working on wicd atm.

Personally I'm looking at connman.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers               >')
126 Fenco Drive                       ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801                       ^^
support@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting

Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[Bruce Hill]

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 08:05:14PM -0500, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
> 
> thanks but I had done that and the command is simply
> /usr/sbin/wicd --no-daemon
> Perhaps relevant is  Type=dbus
> 
> Canek points out that wicd has had no new releases.  Perhaps I should
> switch to networkmanager.  I will try that tomorrow.
> 
> Thank you both,
> allan

Again, I haven't looked at the thread, and don't use systemd, either, but wicd
needs to start in daemon.

wicd - wireless connection daemon implementation
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers               >')
126 Fenco Drive                       ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801                       ^^
support@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting

Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[gottlieb]

On Fri, Dec 13 2013, Bruce Hill wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 08:05:14PM -0500, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>> 
>> thanks but I had done that and the command is simply
>> /usr/sbin/wicd --no-daemon
>> Perhaps relevant is  Type=dbus
>> 
>> Canek points out that wicd has had no new releases.  Perhaps I should
>> switch to networkmanager.  I will try that tomorrow.
>> 
>> Thank you both,
>> allan
>
> Again, I haven't looked at the thread, and don't use systemd, either, but wicd
> needs to start in daemon.
>
> wicd - wireless connection daemon implementation

I didn't write that service file; it came with wice.  So I believe it is
correct.  Also it works perfectly on my backup system.

I certainly can try again with the --no-daemon removed and will do so
this weekend.

thanks for your help.
allan

Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[wraeth]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 14/12/13 04:26, Bruce Hill wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 08:05:14PM -0500, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>> 
>> thanks but I had done that and the command is simply /usr/sbin/wicd
>> --no-daemon Perhaps relevant is  Type=dbus
>> 
>> Canek points out that wicd has had no new releases.  Perhaps I should 
>> switch to networkmanager.  I will try that tomorrow.
>> 
>> Thank you both, allan
> 
> Again, I haven't looked at the thread, and don't use systemd, either, but
> wicd needs to start in daemon.
> 
> wicd - wireless connection daemon implementation
> 

This is probably related to how systemd handles services - instead of starting
processes in daemon mode, it remains as a forground task on a detached session
of systemd, so that anything that comes out through STDOUT/STDERR gets picked
up and routed through journald.

At a guess, anyway - i've only dabbled with it infrequently for work :)

- -- 
wraeth
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Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[gottlieb]

On Fri, Dec 13 2013, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 13 2013, Bruce Hill wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 08:05:14PM -0500, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>>> 
>>> thanks but I had done that and the command is simply
>>> /usr/sbin/wicd --no-daemon
>>> Perhaps relevant is  Type=dbus
>>> 
>>> Canek points out that wicd has had no new releases.  Perhaps I should
>>> switch to networkmanager.  I will try that tomorrow.
>>> 
>>> Thank you both,
>>> allan
>>
>> Again, I haven't looked at the thread, and don't use systemd, either, but wicd
>> needs to start in daemon.
>>
>> wicd - wireless connection daemon implementation
>
> I didn't write that service file; it came with wice.  So I believe it is
> correct.  Also it works perfectly on my backup system.
>
> I certainly can try again with the --no-daemon removed and will do so
> this weekend.
>
> thanks for your help.
> allan

Removing --no-daemon did not fix the problem.
allan

Re: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname)

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 8:24 AM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13/12/2013 14:57, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
>> On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 1:59 AM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 13/12/2013 00:47, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 4:52 PM,  <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>>> At home I use a wired connection so did notice the following problem
>>>>> until I traveled and tried to connect wirelessly.
>>>>> The problem must have started sometime within the past month.
>>>>>
>>>>> If I have wicd started by systemd, i.e.
>>>>> systemctl enable wicd
>>>>> The wired network is started fine but not the wireless.  Instead, I see
>>>>> in the systemd journal
>>>>>
>>>>> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wired  error: No
>>>>> such file or directory
>>>>> wicd[290]: Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wireless  error: No
>>>>> such file or directory
>>>>>
>>>>> If I instead systemctl disable wicd, reboot, and then manually type
>>>>> wpa_supplicant -i wireless -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
>>>>> it works.
>>>>>
>>>>> Indeed after I have booted I can start wicd and cannot get the error
>>>>> above, but the actual behavior is not consistent.
>>>>>
>>>>> My system is ~amd64, profile gnome/systemd
>>>>>
>>>>> My wireless driver is from the package broadcom-sta (wl)
>>>>
>>>> I have never used wicd, so I can't say exactly what it's the problem;
>>>> but I was under the impression that wicd is basically dead. Its last
>>>> release was more than a year and a half ago.
>>>>
>>>> Regards.
>>>>
>>>
>>> release more than a year and a half ago != dead
>>
>> In this particular case I think it is.
>>
>>> the code the user has still works whether the devs adds upstream commits
>>> or not.
>>
>> Well, apparently not [1].
>>
>>> It hasn't bit-rooted, is not incompatible with everything else and
>>> doesn't have outstanding security bugs with little chance of being fixed.
>>
>> Checking [1] and [2], I would think that wicd satisfies (or *at least*
>> starts to satisfy) the very definition of bitrot.
>>
>>> So what's the problem?
>>
>> If the code worked perfectly, none. But apparently it doesn't; I don't
>> know, I don't use it myself. The usual signs of bitrot are there,
>> though.
>>
>>> By that logic, zenity needs to have died 5 years ago but it's still around
>>
>> That's a really bad example. Zenity didn't had a 3.10 release, but it
>> had a 3.8 [3] in march, so it's 9 months since the last release, not
>> 18. Also, now zenity has a 3_10 tag in git [4]. And lastly, its lats
>> commit was 6 days ago, and it had several bugfixes committed not three
>> weeks ago [5]. On the other hand, wicd only has had translations
>> committed in the last 6 *months* [6], and the "development" branch for
>> 2.0 hasn't been touched in *3 years* [7].
>>
>> This is only after a quick search through wicd and zenity repositories
>> (and Gentoo bugzilla). Perhaps wicd has reached perfection and it
>> doesn't need an upstream since everything simply works and there is
>> nothing else to do with it. That would be a first in software history,
>> though.
>>
>> I would simply not use it, and I will recommend any of its users to
>> change to either NetworkManager [8] or connman [9], like pronto.
>>
>> [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/wicd/+bugs
>> [2] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486440
>> [3] ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/zenity/3.8/
>> [4] https://git.gnome.org/browse/zenity/tag/?id=ZENITY_3_10_0
>> [5] https://git.gnome.org/browse/zenity/log/
>> [6] https://code.launchpad.net/~wicd-devel/wicd/experimental
>> [7] https://code.launchpad.net/~wicd-devel/wicd/aqua
>> [8] http://projects.gnome.org/NetworkManager/
>> [9] https://connman.net/
>>
>> Regards.

(Sorry it took me so long to answer, I was away from my computers).

> I'm not convinced, your evidence is rather under-whelming.

It seems you are the only one saying that.

> Yes, wicd is currently in need of a maintainer and some simple fixes per
> your [1] are not being applied. But on the whole the code works for the
> majority of folks, I can't find any outstanding CVEs and I don't see how
> you can qualify this as needing to not be used. YMMV, yes, but don't use
> it? Nah, I can't see a legitimate case.

You say "it works for the majority of folks". Where do you get that?
NM is the default network manager for GNOME, and I think at least the
most popular with KDE (if not the default), and therefore it's the one
used by the "majority" of folks. Search for bugs related to
netwokrmanager *recently*; it just works for the "majority" of folks.

Recommending wicd (which is not maintained for all practical purposes)
instead of NM doesn't seem to be a very smart thing to do. I will
always recommend people that they should use maintained software; and
if they really want to keep an old piece of code working, that they
should step up to the plate and take over maintaining it.
,
> As for zenity, it appears someone has stepped up to the plate in recent
> months, but I clearly recall it being mostly abandoned for years. I
> needed it for winetricks as the alternative kdialog is just ... poor.
> But zenity couldn't be gotten to work at all. If we'd applied your POV
> towards wicd to zenity, see where I'm going?

Either I'm not understanding you, or you are not making any sense:
zenity is maintained. It has no trivial and not translation commits
going in in the last few days. wicd has no such things in *months*.

I don't know what you "recall"; fact is zenity was never abandoned. It
had tarballs for basically all 2.x GNOME releases, and it missed 3.10,
but it has recent commits. Don't trust your memory (I know I don't
trust mine); check the repositories: I just cloned zenity's, and it
has tags for almost every GNOME release, it only misses 1.2, 1.7,
2.25, 2.29, 3.3 and 3.5. Also, it has a gap between 1.8 and 2.5, but
if you check the commit logs, it was a bump from 1.8 to 2.5 so it was
in sync with GNOME version numbers.

So you memory is completely wrong: zenity was *NEVER* "abandoned for
years". Historical records preserved with strong cryptography trumps
any fuzzy memory.

> As for network-manager, we have years of history on this very mailing
> list of people reporting problems getting it to work in anything but
> simple straightforward cases. In so many of these cases, switching to
> wicd fixed the issue. In all that time, you are the only person that
> comes to mind often claiming that nm works great for them. Based on that
> alone, I classify nm as "meh software" which might work but all too
> often doesn't.

We have talked about this before; that *some* people had troubles with
NM years ago means *nothing* now. Fact is, NM is the most used network
manager in Linux for desktop and laptop users (embedded and servers
are another beast), and the *majority* of people doesn't have any
problems with it. Just as with PulseAudio, NM uncovered some bugs and
inconsistencies in network drivers on the Linux stack (most of the
time not even related to NM at all), and at the beginning some people
erroneously attributed the problems to NM. That's all.

Instead wicd is bitrotten software, and it seems that no one thinks
it's even worth to try to salvage it.

> As for connman, it works great on my phone but my limited experience
> with it on desktops was similar to nm.

I haven't ever used connman; I mentioned it because at least is maintained it.

> Admittedly both nm and connman might have improved by leaps and bounds
> in recent months and perhaps they are now awesome, but I don't see it.

In recent years, Alan, not months: your memory is wrong again. Once
more, when was the last problem related to NM reported in this list? I
saw a few days ago that the notification icon in GNOME was not
updated, but that's a problem with nm-applet, not NM directly. And
it's a cosmetic problem, besides.

> Just call wicd for what it really is at this point: ymmv

I will call wicd for that it is, now that I did even more research:
wicd is bitrotten software that no one wants to bring back to life
since we have so much better alternatives, primary among them
NetworkManager. I don't think anybody should use it, much less
recommend it. I think desktop and laptop users should stop using it,
and switch to NetworkManager, or perhaps connman, since that one is at
least maintained it.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Wireless fixed (network-manager but NO dhcpcd) (was: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname))

[gottlieb]

Summary of previous emails.
All was well using openrc / dhcpcd / wicd
Switched to systemd and all was well for weeks.
Then failure occurred (non-global ctrl_ifname).
Tried network-manager (NM) with no success.

New.
Canek told me off-list that, when using NM, you don't enable dhcpcd,
NM handles it all.  Poof and when the smoke cleared ...

Everything is again working.  So if others are having a similar problem,
be sure to systemctl disable dhcpcd.

Thank you, Canek.
allan

Re: Wireless fixed (network-manager but NO dhcpcd) (was: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname))

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 18 Dec 2013 20:07:16 -0500, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:

> Switched to systemd and all was well for weeks.
> Then failure occurred (non-global ctrl_ifname).
> Tried network-manager (NM) with no success.
> 
> New.
> Canek told me off-list that, when using NM, you don't enable dhcpcd,
> NM handles it all.  Poof and when the smoke cleared ...

The same applies to Wicd, the default systemd config appears to have
broken both in the same way. Maybe something should be added to the
systemd wiki page to cover this.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Pentium instruction of the day: FLI: Flash Lights Impressively

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[gentoo-user] Re: Wireless fixed (network-manager but NO dhcpcd)

[gottlieb]

On Thu, Dec 19 2013, Neil Bothwick wrote:

> On Wed, 18 Dec 2013 20:07:16 -0500, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>
>> Switched to systemd and all was well for weeks.
>> Then failure occurred (non-global ctrl_ifname).
>> Tried network-manager (NM) with no success.
>> 
>> New.
>> Canek told me off-list that, when using NM, you don't enable dhcpcd,
>> NM handles it all.  Poof and when the smoke cleared ...
>
> The same applies to Wicd, the default systemd config appears to have
> broken both in the same way. Maybe something should be added to the
> systemd wiki page to cover this.

I added the comment about NM to the systemd wiki (It was already in the
NM wiki; shamefully I didn't see it).  The systemd wiki doesn't mention
wicd so I didn't include anything about it.

allan

Re: Wireless fixed (network-manager but NO dhcpcd) (was: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname))

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 2:50 AM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Dec 2013 20:07:16 -0500, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
>
>> Switched to systemd and all was well for weeks.
>> Then failure occurred (non-global ctrl_ifname).
>> Tried network-manager (NM) with no success.
>>
>> New.
>> Canek told me off-list that, when using NM, you don't enable dhcpcd,
>> NM handles it all.  Poof and when the smoke cleared ...
>
> The same applies to Wicd, the default systemd config appears to have
> broken both in the same way. Maybe something should be added to the
> systemd wiki page to cover this.

The systemd default config is OK; if I'm not mistaken, Allan manually
enabled both NM and dhcpcd (and, at the time, wicd and dhcpcd). There
is no (reasonable) way for systemd to know that this is broken; if you
enable both apache2 and lighttpd, without using socket activation, the
one that starts second will fail since the first one will grab port
80. Again, nothing that systemd (nor OpenRC, nor any other init
system) can do about it.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Re: Wireless fixed (network-manager but NO dhcpcd) (was: [gentoo-user] recent trouble with wicd and systemd (non-global ctrl_ifname))

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 10:23:05 -0600, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:

> >> Canek told me off-list that, when using NM, you don't enable dhcpcd,
> >> NM handles it all.  Poof and when the smoke cleared ...  
> >
> > The same applies to Wicd, the default systemd config appears to have
> > broken both in the same way. Maybe something should be added to the
> > systemd wiki page to cover this.  
> 
> The systemd default config is OK; if I'm not mistaken, Allan manually
> enabled both NM and dhcpcd (and, at the time, wicd and dhcpcd). There
> is no (reasonable) way for systemd to know that this is broken;

Right, I hadn't realised the configuration had been changed manually.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Life Support System Failure - Reboot Patient (Y/n)?

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[gentoo-user] Re: Wireless fixed (network-manager but NO dhcpcd)

[gottlieb]

On Thu, Dec 19 2013, Neil Bothwick wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 10:23:05 -0600, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
>
>> >> Canek told me off-list that, when using NM, you don't enable dhcpcd,
>> >> NM handles it all.  Poof and when the smoke cleared ...  
>> >
>> > The same applies to Wicd, the default systemd config appears to have
>> > broken both in the same way. Maybe something should be added to the
>> > systemd wiki page to cover this.  
>> 
>> The systemd default config is OK; if I'm not mistaken, Allan manually
>> enabled both NM and dhcpcd (and, at the time, wicd and dhcpcd). There
>> is no (reasonable) way for systemd to know that this is broken;
>
> Right, I hadn't realised the configuration had been changed manually.

The configuration needed to be changed, just correctly :-).  Out of the
box, none of the network managers are enabled.  My error was in enabling
dhcpcd as well as NM.  I did need to enable NM "manually".

allan