Network Manager

[Alex Zhang]

Hi Stefan,

Long time no see. :)
>> I think it's easy to develop a daemon talking with NM to manage the  
>> networks. But most important thing is to merge NM into our devices,  
>> because NM depends on many packages like: libnl, hal, udev, dhclient,  
>> wpa_supplicant ...
>>     
>
> That is the point where a good build system comes into play.
> OpenEmbedded handles this for us. I hope you don't build all the stuff
> for your device by hand.
>
>   

Yes, I did it by hand, because my device is based on MIPS. I have no 
idea how to setup OE to support MIPS. :-[
I wrote a little Makefile to build GLib, DBus, HAL, UDEV, Libnl ... NM, 
it works just fine for me. :)
>> In addition, though NM-0.7 has a clear framework, but it's not ready ATM :(
>>     
>
> Well, have you tested it at least? I'm using SVN rev 3202 of the NM
> daemon here for some months now. 

I run SVN r3506 or NM-0.6.5 on my device. They are NOT work so good as 
my expected, maybe I miss something.
> It allows me to connect to wired
> ethernet, open wifi, WEP wifi, WPA wifi and WPA2 wifi. It is not SVN
> HEAD but runs pretty stable. 

You mean on your PC or GTA02?
> Of course I'm also waiting for a 0.7
> release, but having all the API changes in mind, coding against 0.6.6
> makes no sense.
>
>   
>> Anyway, glad to see you're starting such project, Hope can share some  
>> idea with you :)
>>     
>
> To elaborate a bit more on enlazar. It is not a daemon. It is an UI
> for NM using EFL written against a given product spec. The major work
> goes into e_nm, a convenience library inside e_dbus.
>
> There are also more ideas how to improve NM itself on mobile
> devices. For example keep the wifi connection down most of the time
> and react on "network requests" of applications. Like pppd dial on
> demand. But that are just ideas right now.
>   

Yes, it needs many effort to improve NM for embedded device.
> So if your device uses EFL enlazar could be interesting for you. Or
> better e_nm could be interesting. If you don't you EFL, enlazar gives
> you nothing extra.
>   
Sorry, What's EFL & e_nm?

Thanks so much for your comments!
Alex