Basically, you are free to use any network connector that you wish and Elive aims to make it as much as compatible for you to be free to
But is important to know the reasons we picked network-manager among others, at least in the actual moment, versions between 3.0.0 stable and 3.8.19 beta, we don't know about the future...
Features: we want to be able to connect everywhere, for example the reason we switched from wicd to network-manager in the past was because somebody was unable to use Elive (connect to internet) in its university, which the Wifi configuration required an username & password for the WPA settings, this was correctly supported on network-manager among other features like VPN
Geolocation and Time configruation: Elive uses a script inserted on /etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/ which detects the country where you are everytime you connect to internet (based on your ip), in order to configure your time correctly all the time, this makes sure your comptuer has always the correct time, and if you fly to another country, the timezone will be automatically updated
Re-used internet configurations in Live mode: Elive has a special feature (same scripts directory) to save network settings in your /boot (which is never encrypted), so when you boot a new Live system of Elive, you don't need to insert your own wifi passwords again, they are simply re-used
Compatibility with other distros: when using the installer with migration-mode or similar, the network configurations from other distros are imported in your new system, most of distros uses network-manager so they will directly work and all your settings will be saved and re-used
After to know the benefits to keep network-manager you are free to do things on your own
Just make sure to follow this howto Disabling network-manager for connman as @triantares suggested, otherwise both daemons trying to manage the network devices will conflict and thus, unable to work
Considering Elive E16 uses nm-manager and E24 uses connman, it's simply a matter of turning on/off one or the otrher when logging in to a different desktop manager.
So also considering that E24 is the "deviant" here, we only need a small script added to E24 startup that disables nm-manager and enables connman through systemmctl (after making sure that connman-gtk is installed)...... and of course the other way round when leaving E24.
mmh if im not wrong the important thing is the daemon more than the widget/interface, so if the system boots using NM and then also conman, both will be trying to change the status / settings on the wifi interface at the same time and then, conflict / fail, so its important to not use more than one daemon at the same time
well, IMHO the one that should be used for now NM unless connman goes to a compatible implementation and using the same features (so its easy to remove it from e24), the only problem with e24 is the systray, so its basically a user-choice if wants to use conman (but as we know, E24+ is not yet polished / ready in elive, which means that every configuration / fixups depends on the users at the moment)
this in the end is more like a bug in debian, like when you install a login-manager like entrance, debconf asks you which one to use and only allows -that- daemon to be run instead of both, so lightdm will be never run on such case
@triantares as your comment on BUG hunting Enlightenment (E24+) - #77 by triantares , i think we should check -all- the features that provides network-manager (like inserting an username/password for the wpa connections) and see if we have them in connman
by other side, what is your reason to use connman instead of network-manager? just because e24 recommends / uses it? or because of a specific reason? (like, lighter, etc...)
Yes, that would be the sole reason ..... ergo: nm-manager is supported widely over all distros and a lot of tutorials use it as an example.
People in general tend to use Howtos coming from other distros (think Ubuntu) and expect them to work across any distro.
Frankly, nm-manager is the better option (albeit connman predates it) ....... I'll look into using/adding tint2 systray functionality to E24 in short notice.
I'm still procrastinating writing the Howto on the E16 minimal desktop, after that's done I'll start dissecting E24 (again).
oh, "tint2 systray", well, E24 has a systray issue but we need to use it, the problem is that we cannot know (not worth to invest the time) until debian releases a new version (so maybe is just the libs, X libs, NM libs, etc...), but IF after this update, E24 still not showing the systray of apps like NM and others, then they needs to fix this issue
so yeah, in the meantime we can use connman or another systray as temporal use
its just usability and automation it is what the user would expect (re-using already saved network configurations from him), same things happens when you upgrade your OS (most of them)
yeah i can understand can feel like "wtf, how you did that?"
in the Live boot process, there's a message that shows up with something like "re-activing your network configuration" or "re-using your network configuration", which should make the experience more "expectable", maybe the message can be changed to something else (can be betatested it in Live mode and improve it from eltrans)
No, it worries me that, in the case of losing an encrypted laptop, anyone with simple access could find out what networks I connect to, with possibly enough info to find out who I am, where I live and even access my networks and it's content.
I make sure that cannot happen but also means that I'm forced to watch this 30sec countdown for the unsuccessful search.
Another downside could be using a connection in i.e a Japanese hotel and then getting Japanese language widgets which would be totally maddening as I don't understand Japanese.
IMO this is a technical, time wasting solution to a non-existing problem.
mmh, i dont think it can be the case, will need betatesting i think you can force it with the boot parameter country=jp , the only thing that happens is that it adds missing languages for JP country, and yeah the widgets will show in the first time in japanese BUT if im not wrong, you can read in english the names of the other languages (that is, the first widget that appears, asking you which language to use), so in the first moment you have a widget not-understandable with a list of understandable languages to pick your desired one
and Elive aims to make it as much as compatible for you to be free to
just because e24 recommends / uses it? or because of a specific reason? (like, lighter, etc...)
