NetworkManager 1.48 Improves (…) still have to use 3 different applications to set network settings. Great job!
Maybe the GNOME team could allocate a few bucks to move the entire network stack to systemd-networkd
and create a new unified networking UI.
I’m curious where you’re having issues. I’ve been able to use the little GNOME widget for setting up wireless connections for years.
Do you have an edge usecase that makes you drop back to using nmcli or is there a missing feature forcing you back to the ip/ifconfig commands?
No sarcasm, I’d just be interested in understanding your frustration a little better.
What sense does it make to have to use two or three different UIs to configure your network. Some stuff can get done under Settings > Networking, others under nm-connection-editor
…
And to be fair NetworkManager’s networking implementation is a convoluted unreliable mess that doesn’t support half of systemd-networkd
options and is incapable of handling changes to interfaces and links gracefully.
Even the classic Window network interfaces properties window is more consistent than what GNOME and NetworkManager offer.
NetworkManager is not the cause for having multiple UIs, that is just one of the side effects of GNOME going for the minimalistic approach. It’s never going to have all settings in their simple UI because that’s out of the scope for the GNOME project.
If having advanced network settings in a single UI is important to you, use KDE. It has wifi, static IPv4/IPv6, VLANs, routes, bridges, VPN and much more all in one interface.
That might be the problem with DE integration. I’ve been using KDE, and I’ve only had to deal with a single interface for setting wifi connection.
NetworkManager is still shite on KDE, I’ve had to change the backend to iwd and download a new DHCP client just this week.