8.04 networking seems awfully broken.

[Derek Broughton]

Grant Edwards wrote:

> On 2008-07-24, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>> Grant Edwards wrote:
>>
>>> I'd have to say that the networking support seems to quite a
>>> mess (at least compared to other distros I use):
>>> 
>>>   1) There's a daemon called avahi-autoipd that keeps starting
>>>      up and f*&king up the network configuration.  I configured
>>
>> A common misconception.  avahi doesn't mess up the network -
>> it gets invoked if the network is already broken.
> 
> So when the cable gets plugged in, avahi will give up control
> and an address will be retreived via DHCP?

If your DHCP server is working, yes.
> 
>>>      the interfaces to use DHCP.  That means that if there's no
>>>      response from a DHCP server, then keep trying until there
>>>      _is_ a response from a DHCP server.
>>
>> Why would you think that?  In fact, avahi is supposed to do exactly what
>> Windows does
>> - assign a 169.*.*.* address when no DHCP is available.  ALL
>> DHCP client's time out eventually.
> 
> Perhaps that's true, but on my Gentoo systems the DHCP client
> isn't started until the link is up.

The link is "up" as far as the O/S knows when the wireless interface is
active.  It promptly starts a DHCP dialog.  If you have a power button for
your wireless, turn it off, then watch the log when you turn it on.

>> It's enabled by default because it's enabled by default in
>> Windows, and people with heterogeneous LANs want to be able to
>> connect without a DHCP server.
> 
> I guess that's news to me -- I've never seen a network that
> worked like that.

Sure you have.  Find a windows system, connect it to a network with no DHCP
server - you'll get a 169.*.*.* address.  You can argue that avahi gets it
wrong - I have no idea if it's right - but it is definitely _trying_ to
emulate Windows Zeroconf.

>> Yeah?  So complain to the vendors who won't provide let Linux
>> distros distribute firmware, or get a decent Linux-supported
>> wifi.
> 
> I guess that's an option.  Or I could switch to a distro that
> does provide support for things like that.

Of course you can.  Different distros take different interpretations of law,
but in Canonical's legal staff's opinion, distributing Broadcom firmware is
illegal.  Personally, I believe you shouldn't install software on random
hardware - if you want to install Windows, you don't do it on hardware that
doesn't support Windows, and when I want to install Linux, I make sure that
there are simple solutions to handle all the hardware, or buy new hardware
that _is_ supported (like Intel wireless).

> No, it doesn't.  wpa_supplicant simply doesn't run when the
> system boots.  If I restart the network, it does.

It's started from Network Manager, so you need to see what happened when
Network manager started (it's started from dbus, not /etc/init.d) 

>>>   4) Once wpa_supplicant is running, the network management
>>>      applet seems incapable of configuring wpa_supplicant with
>>>      the password. It's unable to associate until one fires up
>>>      a terminal, starts wpa_cli, and sets the password
>>>      manually.
> 
> No response for that one eh?
 
I did - but it wouldn't be useful.  I use Kubuntu, you're using Ubuntu
(Gnome), and I know that's handled by a particular gnome application, but
not which (gnome-keyring-daemon ?).  
-- 
derek