[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#673136: Bug#673136: network-manager-gnome: nm-connection-editor shows no connections and everything is greyed out (can't edit anything)

[Jameson Graef Rollins]

On Wed, May 16 2012, Michael Biebl <biebl at debian.org> wrote:
>> If I fail to understand the role of consolekit please do enlighten me.
>> From /usr/share/doc/network-manager/README.Debian:
>> 
>>   Security
>>   ~~~~~~~~
>>   
>>   To allow users to connect to the NetworkManager daemon they have to be in the
>>   group "netdev". If you want to add a user to group "netdev" use the command
>>   "adduser username netdev" or one of the graphical user management frontends.
>>   After that you have to reload D-Bus with the command "service dbus reload".
>>   
>>   Alternatively you can install the "consolekit" package which will grant access
>>   for all locally logged in users.
>> 
>> Are you telling me this is incorrect?  The implication here is clearly
>> that I could unintsall consolekit and still be able to use
>> network-manager if I was in the netdev group, which I am.
>
> This information is outdated. And yes, I should remove it.

No, this should NOT be removed; it should be extensively expanded.  The
biggest point of this bug report seems to be a severe lack of
documentation about how to get network-manager working.  The package
seems to have a lot of subtle dependencies that are neither expressed in
the actual package dependencies and recommends, or in any of the
included documentation.

>> network-manager neither Depends or Recommends consolekit.  If consolekit
>> is required to use network-manager then the network-manager package is
>> currently broken.
>
> network-manager has a Recommends on policykit (which will pull consolekit).

I have both the policykit and consolekit daemons running and that wasn't
enough for network-manager.  It apparently requires a specific
configuration or state of interaction between these daemons that is
again not ever described.  Since network-manager requires very specific
configurations of these other tools it really needs to have clearer
documentation of what those configurations are, and how to achieve them.
I still have no idea what they are.

>> I am using XDM and am plenty happy with it.  Suggesting that I use a
>> different login manager is not a solution to this problem.  Again, if
>> there are unmet dependencies for this package, then the package is
>> broken.
>
> Well, XDM does not have proper ConsoleKit integration.

If this is true, then again, there is a severe failure in
network-managers documentation.

But I don't even believe that's the issue.  I tried some of the other
display managers you suggested and *still* network-manager failed to
work.  Eventually I was able to at least edit the connections with some
black-magic incantation:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=643028#59

But then network-manager still failed to provide me with any way to
actually connect to any of the networks!

I'm tempted to insist that this package include a big WARNING that if
you're not running some sort of bloated display manager and desktop
environment then it will fail to work.  I wasted five hours trying to
get this thing working and it ultimately failed.  I'm pretty pissed
about it.  Thank god the issue that broke wicd for me got fixed with a
simple upgrade.

Anyway, I do appreciate your help, Michael, and particularly your
incredibly speedy responses.  My frustration is not meant to be directed
at you.  But I do hope this can lead to some positive change in the
packaging that will reduce the suffering of those who follow me.

jamie.
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