netcfg: why?

Llama · 2008-09-22 09:40:10

Hi,

Archlinux is supposed to be a KISS distribution, that's OK. Because NetworkManager is no KISS, something simple is in order. OK too. But what is so special about netcfg, which doesn't exist in the FOSS domain already? The first logical choice is to invest in an already established project; another one is justified, if all the others fall short of satisfactory. Wicd is KISS enough and quite powerful, for instance...

What netcfg is better at than any other KISS network management? It's an honest question; I'm genuinely qurious.

wuischke · 2008-09-22 09:48:51

If I'm not mistaken (never used wicd), wicd is a GUI network manager written in python. These are two dependencies not everyone has: A running X-server and python. Plus netcfg is very user-friendly (according to my definition of user-friendly), so I never used something else.

Lord Illidan · 2008-09-22 10:23:34

If you use a Gnome Desktop, I'd recommend networkmanager, though. At least, to me it seems the most userfriendly option. Just put in your password, that's it.

moljac024 · 2008-09-22 10:44:40

netcfg doesn't require a running X server, and I believe it isn't overly complicated as far is the technical implementation goes. So that makes it a textbook example of Keeping it Simple Stupid

Misfit138 · 2008-09-22 12:14:18

The most KISS method is just to use /etc/rc.conf

Army · 2008-09-22 13:06:11

netcfg kicks ass, don't ever want to miss it, networkmanager is crap, wicd is quite a nice gui, but it's still not as great as netcfg

End of comment

test1000 · 2008-09-22 13:08:17

No, the most KISS method is to understand the wireless tools. I still don't understand the need for the abstraction that is netcfg(but maybe that's just because i never got wireless to work through netcfg and got pissed off that in arch, which is supposed to be kiss, i had to deal with an abstraction instead of simple guidelines of how to use the most lowlevel tools to make an internet connection.. I think that this would be the better spent effort if the purpose was to make arch more KISS)

Last edited by test1000 (2008-09-22 13:41:43)

Misfit138 · 2008-09-22 14:21:43

test1000 wrote:

, i had to deal with an abstraction instead of simple guidelines of how to use the most lowlevel tools to make an internet connection.. I think that this would be the better spent effort if the purpose was to make arch more KISS)

There is plenty of documentation for wireless_tools in the wiki; within the Beginners' Guide and on the Wireless page.

I like wireless_tools, I use them when roaming. I use /etc/rc.conf at home.

KimTjik · 2008-09-22 14:39:41

Wicd is pretty good and recent releases have improved, but don't try it on an old laptop! It's such a resource hog that it won't pass set up of an account. Netcfg is indeed light.

carlocci · 2008-09-22 15:11:58

From what I read netcfg is just another tool to learn, but as it doesn't provide enough automation and interactivity, I prefer to use wireless tools from the command line and wicd if I have a GUI.

I agree that having so many python interpreters running is not a great: I run openbox but with conky, pypanel, wicd and a python notify daemon running, it's really ram consuming

dsr · 2008-09-22 17:22:34

I used to use /etc/rc.conf on my laptop (I had my wireless interface set to "essid any" to automatically connect to the strongest open connection), but a fairly recent initscripts update broke the rc.conf method (because it used the broken iwlist <interface> scan feature), so now I use netcfg with a profile I call openwifi. I have scan turned off. I haven't tried rc.conf since, but I figure I might as well stay with net-profiles since it works and can be adapted for specific networks if the need arises.

netcfg is certainly more KISS than any GUI tool, since it doesn't require X11 and profiles are simple text files that are very easy to configure.

rson451 · 2008-09-22 20:44:20

How exactly is netcfg an abstraction layer from the basic wireless tools? You even set the command line options for the command line tools in the netcfg profiles. That's not abstract at all. It just provides you a way to store multiple network setups rather than having to redo them every single time.

Profjim · 2008-09-22 21:13:16

I view netcfg as something like abs or yaourt. They don't do anything you a couldn't do on your own, manually, but they make it a hell of a lot easier. Don't you write a lot of little scripts and shell functions to make your life easier? These are like beautifully executed examples of that. That may not by itself justify their getting official recognition (and indeed, yaourt is not officially supported), but I think a few judicious choices of community-backed scripts benefit all of us. Netcfg is not perfect. But it's pretty damn good and is getting better. It's also a great way for the community to consolidate its experience with finicky wifi setups. If I were trying to help a newcomer on the forums troubleshoot her wifi connection, I'd have a difficult time on my own thinking up all the "quirks" her hardware might need. But as we learn what "quirks" options to build into netcfg, that kind of collective knowledge gets usefully organized.

I wish there were already a broader open-source CLI project like netcfg, but I haven't yet come across it.

test1000 · 2008-09-22 22:09:11

There is plenty of documentation for wireless_tools in the wiki; within the Beginners' Guide and on the Wireless page.

That might be so, but how am i supposed to know if my using the tools manually will muck up something else? Maybe it's just because i'm not a CS major but if you give me a tool to do a job which is an abstraction for another tool this tells me it's hard to do it manually, again creating FUD.

I'm not saying netcfg is a bad project, for all i know it could be great(i don't know, didn't get it to work..), and it certainly seems so considering what people seem to think of it, both in this thread and from what i've seen before, i'm just saying if it is easily accomplished manually: don't create an abstraction. This is easily seen(although this may be a much more invasive-stupid tool) in the auto xorg.conf makers included in arch(can't remember the names, it was 2 right?) with people asking what should i do now, fearing opening xorg.conf on their own when the autotool fails(which it does, nothing is perfect).

How exactly is netcfg an abstraction layer from the basic wireless tools? You even set the command line options for the command line tools in the netcfg profiles.

profiles? what's a profile? see how this is stuff to be learned?

... That's not abstract at all. It just provides you a way to store multiple network setups rather than having to redo them every single time.

oh.

Last edited by test1000 (2008-09-22 22:14:57)

z0phi3l · 2008-09-22 22:20:09

^^ netcfg is just another tool, not an abstraction, you are making it WAY harder than it really is

That being said, like all tools use the one you like

Misfit138 · 2008-09-22 22:59:55

You said:

test1000 wrote:

, i had to deal with an abstraction instead of simple guidelines of how to use the most lowlevel tools to make an internet connection.. I think that this would be the better spent effort if the purpose was to make arch more KISS)

And I said that there is plenty of documentation available...therefore your response:

That might be so, but how am i supposed to know if my using the tools manually will muck up something else? Maybe it's just because i'm not a CS major but if you give me a tool to do a job which is an abstraction for another tool this tells me it's hard to do it manually, again creating FUD.

Does not quite make sense to me. ..

timetrap · 2008-09-23 00:35:42

test1000 wrote:

, i had to deal with an abstraction instead of simple guidelines of how to use the most lowlevel tools to make an internet connection.. I think that this would be the better spent effort if the purpose was to make arch more KISS)

test1000: The wiki is always avalible, in fact it comes with the new arch CDs.

Here is the simple *cough* way:

ifconfig wlan0 up
iwlist scanning 
iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
iwconfig wlan0 essid "essid-from-iwlist"
iwconfig wlan0 key "wep-key-here"
dhclient wlan0

Personally, I use wicd.

dsr · 2008-09-23 00:50:24

timetrap, what don't you find simple about that? Obviously you don't have to type it by hand. A shell script like

#!/bin/sh
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid any
dhcpcd wlan0

looks pretty simple to me. Of course, it's not that much harder to make a profile for netcfg like

CONNECTION="wireless"
INTERFACE=wlan0
SCAN="no"
SECURITY="None"
ESSID="any"
IP="dhcp"

wirenik · 2008-09-23 01:04:41

The major thing abot netcfg2, I think, is that it runs without a running X server, which is very important for Arch users. And just because there's already a utility to do something doesn't mean that somebody else can't make a better one, or at least a different one.

When I installed Arch on my laptop, I needed wireless Internet to use Pacman. Using the standard tools (/etc/rc.conf, iwconfig, etc) would usually work, but my network is WPA-encrypted, so I needed to get something to get past that -- and the tool I used had to be available without Internet, and without X and GTK. netcfg2 is on the core ISO, and has WPA support, and runs from the command line. So I used that.

I found it really simple to set up, easy to use, and incredibly fast. In short, a great tool. I thought I'd download Wicd once I got a GUI going, but I didn't need to. Paired with tools like iwlist and iwconfig, netcfg2 did everything I needed it to and nothing extra - no RAM-heavy tray icon, no GUI that I'll never use. Nice and simple.

I mean, I know that for people who are always changing networks or just plain prefer something better, Wicd/NetworkManager are good choices. netcfg2 just suits my tastes better.

Last edited by wirenik (2008-09-23 01:08:52)

iphitus · 2008-09-23 12:08:21

When I started netcfg2 there were no KISS tools to invest time in. I just wanted something that connected to networks easily as I routinely moved between a handful of different networks.

So yeah, you can argue about whether there's a need or not now, but I had a need at the time 2 years ago that no other project fulfilled. Others liked it, it was sufficiently KISS and so it was adopted to [core] last March.

We already had a netcfg tool, but it wasn't too reliable or clean - it had been developed in a very ad-hoc way, with stuff being crufted into it over time (I'm guilty of that). I started out trying to clean it up, and ended up just rewriting it.

The first netcfg2 was released to the dev ML on the 18th Sep 2006. Just over two years ago (whoa!) The original netcfg2 scripts went through so many revisions and designs it's not funny. I'm very iterative with my development, and it's not uncommon for me to experiment with a range of designs before I decide what I like. I'm still not happy with the current scripts, and there's a few changes coming up in 2.2.

What netcfg is better at than any other KISS network management? It's an honest question; I'm genuinely qurious.

It just connects to networks (or it damn well should ). That's it. I've tried to avoid making it intelligent, and avoid having it manage networks -- it just connects to them. No GUI, no sys tray, no complicated setup. Though -- if you want intelligence and fancy features netcfg provides a base to work with, and you could do some really cool things with it by writing some trivial bash scripts.

James

ps: wirenik: cool avatar! Wall-E!

Last edited by iphitus (2008-09-23 12:18:48)

test1000 · 2008-09-23 14:56:43

thanks for giving me the 101 timetrap:P i knew it couldn't be that hard... I still think this is easier than the rc.conf/netcfg method though although i might switch to netcfg when i understand what goes on in the background

thisllub · 2008-09-23 20:49:36

I had a lot of trouble with netcfg.

Then it turned out I had been given the wrong key .

It is a convenient place to store information.

timetrap · 2008-09-24 14:12:14

dsr wrote:

timetrap, what don't you find simple about that? Obviously you don't have to type it by hand.

Agreed, I just think it is simpler to not have to deal with maintaining a shell script etc.

test1000 wrote:

thanks for giving me the 101 timetrap:P i knew it couldn't be that hard...

No problem test1000. I think once you understand this process, netcfg/wicd makes more sense.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-09-22 09:40:10

netcfg: why?

#2 2008-09-22 09:48:51

Re: netcfg: why?

#3 2008-09-22 10:23:34

Re: netcfg: why?

#4 2008-09-22 10:44:40

Re: netcfg: why?

#5 2008-09-22 12:14:18

Re: netcfg: why?

#6 2008-09-22 13:06:11

Re: netcfg: why?

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Re: netcfg: why?

#8 2008-09-22 14:21:43

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#9 2008-09-22 14:39:41

Re: netcfg: why?

#10 2008-09-22 15:11:58

Re: netcfg: why?

#11 2008-09-22 17:22:34

Re: netcfg: why?

#12 2008-09-22 20:44:20

Re: netcfg: why?

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Re: netcfg: why?

#14 2008-09-22 22:09:11

Re: netcfg: why?

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Re: netcfg: why?

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#17 2008-09-23 00:35:42

Re: netcfg: why?

#18 2008-09-23 00:50:24

Re: netcfg: why?

#19 2008-09-23 01:04:41

Re: netcfg: why?

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#23 2008-09-24 14:12:14

Re: netcfg: why?

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