[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#606268: Bug#606268: Bug#606268: now ignores interfaces configured by d-i

[Matthew Palmer]

[Summary: NetworkManager doesn't properly transition away from
/etc/network/interfaces-configured wireless interfaces to using it's own
internal configuration database, causing them to not come up at all]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 08:30:40PM +0100, Michael Biebl wrote:
> Imho, the cleanest solution here would be, if d-i simply wouldn't write out any
> configuration (dhcp/wireless) if network-manager is installed (through the
> desktop task).
> 
> CCing the d-i team, to know if that would be feasible.

No, this is not feasible at this stage of the release.  The package that
detects and configures the network (netcfg) runs long, *LONG* before any
packages or tasks are chosen.  Now, in theory, we could defer writing out
/e/n/interfaces until the end of the install (probably by extending
finish-install), but that would be complicated and prone to bugs, which
means isn't going to happen for squeeze anyway (d-i rc1 was just released;
nothing but showstopper bugs *in* *d-i* are going to get fixed now).

At any rate, I don't think that not writing out network config is going to
solve your problem.  What about when a user of a newly-installed system (ie
post d-i) decides they want the desktop task installed?  Or decides to
install NM individually?  In both of those cases, interfaces is going to be
populated, and you (presumably) need to deal with that correctly, and it's
no different to the install-time case anyway.  Even if we ignored those
people, by not writing out a network config you're giving all desktop users
a system with no network at all at first boot, which is pretty much
guaranteed to result in a large pile of failing d-i installation reports
that we can do nothing about.

- Matt