[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#608533: nm-applet settings 'forgotten' by design?

[Dominique Brazziel]

	I think the reason '!Enable Wireless' and '!Enable Network' settings
are forgotten at start-up is because because nm-applet is autostarted
with the '--sm-disable' option.  This is clarified a  bit
in the changelog:

   2006-01-31  Dan Williams  <dcbw at redhat.com>
    * nm-applet.desktop
        - Add --sm-disable to Exec arguments, presuming that when
          using autostart, we don't want session management

Further testing with the underlying daemon shows that 
'/var/lib/NetworkManagemer/NetworkManager.state' is rewritten
at (re)boot and restart time with all 'NetworkingEnabled'
and 'WirelessEnabled' set to 'true' (as well as 
'WWANEnabled=true').  It seems that the NetworkManager.state file is
used to track the state of the network in the running session only,
and is overwritten at startup time.  I think this goes to the stated
goal of network-manager:

	NetworkManager attempts to keep an active network connection available
at all times.

I think it _might_ be possible to have nm-applet start with wireless

and/or networking disabled if the session is saved using
'gnome-session-save', the '--sm-disable' option is removed 
and nm-applet is taken out of the autostart list, but this seems
like both more work than simply disabling whichever connections 
or options one doesn't want by manually unchecking the box(es), or
simply not running nm-applet except on an ad hoc basis.   
Any changes to desktop files, etc. in an effort to save session state
seem to act counter to the design of the framework and would be
counterproductive in the end.

	On a more hopeful note, the release notes page of the
Network Manager project
(http://live.gnome.org/NetworkManager/ReleaseProcess) indicate
nice changes coming down the pike, and I see that Release 0.8.2
has among the fixes and features:

        Saves and restores WiFi "enabled" state