Another month, another Dell deal on the N900. I’m pretty [1] happy with mine, and for only $349 you too can help support a companythatactuallycontributesbacktoopen–source instead of just tossing shit over the wall. As open-source developers we should vote with our money, and just like we don’t buy Broadcom wifi cards because they Just Don’t Care ®, so should we avoid phones from companies with similar attitudes. That means you should get an N900. Use coupon code P3MK8L7D80B0F0 at the checkout.
[1] now if only the sodding email client would actually cache my mail instead of hitting up the server every time I open my inbox… What gives, Nokia?
Whoever said networking was boring? Actually, I hope it is boring for users, so boring in fact that they can ignore it completely, get on with their life, and accomplish all sorts of magical things. But enabling that magic is never dull, and it’s never done. There’s always a new technology or device to enable, more configurations to cover, and changing usage patterns to adapt to. And another giant leap along that road is…
NetworkManager 0.8.1
… which we released a few days ago. Tarballs are in the usualplaces. Hit up the packages for Fedora, Debian, and Ubuntu. This release is the culmination of a ton more effort than just the minor version bump signifies, and a huge thanks goes out to everyone involved in the features, code, and testing. As always, this release nails the top feature request and piles in a bit of something for everyone else.
Bluetooth Dialup Networking (DUN) – the #1 user requested feature; you set it up just like Bluetooth PAN except you check a different box at the end
nmcli – a command-line interface to almost everything NM does
Mobile Broadband Status – signal strength, roaming, carrier name, and access technology shown for your convenience
Enhanced IPv6 support – with better DHCPv6 and tons of fixes to IPv6 operation
Logging and debugging – log verbosity and domains are now highly granular; make NM as quiet or verbose as you desire
Overall we’ve had 650 commits, 80 bugs fixed, and almost 20,000 lines of code changed since 0.8. That’s a ton of great stuff. And we’ll continue to land yet more great stuff in 0.8.2. Let us know what you want!
Next Stop: Simplification 0.9
We’ve decided the benefits of user settings are outweighed by the simplicity of having all your configuration stored and managed by the core daemon. So Daniel Gnoutcheff is spearheading the effort to kill user settings as a Google Summer of Code project, and he’s kicking major ass. We’re reworking NetworkManager into the one-stop-shop for all your configuration needs, making it radically simpler to create custom user interfaces for controlling and configuring your network, enabling great fast user switching and finer-grained administration. It makes NetworkManager smaller, faster, and easier to interact with. We’re going to base a great GNOME Shell network experience off this architecture and make KDE and XFCE developers’ lives easier at the same time.
This is a huge effort, and best of all should get rid of way more code than it adds. I love waking up to the smell of freshly killed code even if I wrote it. I don’t think I can understate how much easier it’ll be to talk to, work with, and understand NetworkManager when this is done. It’s gonna be great. Even magical.
I’m pretty [1] happy with mine, and for only $349 you too can help support a company that actually contributes back to open–source instead of just tossing shit over the wall. As open-source developers we should vote with our money, and just like we don’t buy Broadcom wifi cards because they Just Don’t Care ®, so should we avoid phones from companies with similar attitudes. That means you should get an N900. Use coupon code P3MK8L7D80B0F0 at the checkout.