Re: [gentoo-user] Systemd and ModemManager

["Canek Peláez Valdés" <caneko@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 10:11 AM,  <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
[ ... ]

> So far I guess I have been following todd (actually I never noticed them
> before posting)
>
> David's method may be better (logs less cluttered) but does run an
> unneeded service.  I am hoping someone (guess who :-) ) will chime in
> with the magic incantation to have the system not try to start
> modemmanger.

I don't know If you meant me, but I'm going to try to answer anyway ;)

The thing is, under the GNOME Grand View of How Things Should Work™,
ModemManagar is never "unneeded", since you don't actually *know* if
and when you'll want to use a "modem" (there are *several* pieces of
hardware that can be considered "modems" nowadays). The idea, as with
everything else, is that if you plug/pair *anything* that could work
as a modem, then it should Just Work™.

As is the normal position with GNOME (if I understand correctly, which
I think I do), they are interested in making the life easier for the
regular case, and since everyone has a (potential) modem in their
pockets right now in the form of a cellphone with bluetooth
connectivity, the regular case is to have the system prepared to work
with them, even if most GNOME users will never use their cellphones as
modems.

If you say "my desktop computer has no bluetooth and I will *never*
use any kind of modem with it", that's perfectly reasonably; but the
GNOME devs will probably say something along the lines of that being a
"particular" case, not the general one (which is technically true,
BTW).

So no, there is no magic incantation to have NetworkManager (is not
the system, is NM) not try to start ModemManager. We could patch the
code for that, and actually before GNOME 3.10 or 3.8, Gentoo did that;
but with every new version of NM is harder and harder, since the GNOME
devs make the (technically correct) assumption that everyone now has a
modem for their computers, and they code under that assumption; so
Gentoo stopped patching NM.

I (like Todd) have ModemManager enabled. From what I can see, it is a
single threaded process that uses basically no memory nor processor
(it's idle until you connect/plug a modem), and that opens no ports to
the outside world, so it doesn't brings any (obvious) security issues

If someone wrote the necessary code to make ModemManager optional to
NM, I think (but I could be wrong) that the Gentoo GNOME devs would
take it; but it will never be accepted upstream. At this point I think
I agree with them.

Sorry if this doesn't help.

Regards.
-- 
Dr. Canek Peláez Valdés
Profesor de Asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México