[asto]

I've never done any systems programming on Linux (or any other OS for that matter) so I can't comment on most of the article but I HAVE configured a network on a Fedora box on many occasions and it's simpler than the author's making it out to be.

On my fedora computer, I can just run system-config-network from the terminal and have a GUI pop up where I can configure network devices and DNS addresses with no need for X11 whatsoever. This is enough for a stable internet connection with no further action from the administrator of the computer such as "periodically calling ifconfig and ip route add until you finally managed to fetch all the data before NetworkManager would mess it up again."

Of course, if your router issues the configuration via DHCP, then you don't even need to do this much. You can just boot in on install and access the internet. I believe RedHat and CentOS work the same way. Contrary to his perception, configuring a network is not really a big deal on a Linux computer! :-D

[FooBarWidget]

I suspect that the author is used to the old interface, involving manually writing shell scripts that call ifconfig and friends. And now he's pissed off because he can't do that anymore and concludes that the system must suck, or that his "freedom" is in jeopardy because his old way is no longer supported.

Well I see things differently. Users should be free from interference from ancient and non-user-friendly cruft. Yeah so some /etc scripts don't work anymore, but the new way allows displaying GUI dialogs which the old way didn't allow so there are legit reasons supporting the new way.

[dman]

You can still do all of that. NetworkManager is far from the only way to get your box to connect to the internet.

[regularfry]

It does have a tendency to intrude if you don't explicitly configure it not to, or remove it if you're not going to use it. I always forget to tell it not to configure /etc/resolv.conf, and always get confused when DNS lookup breaks.

[dman]

apt-get purge it!

[nknight]

Operating systems with much more reliable and user-friendly network configuration interfaces (Windows and Mac) continue to permit advanced users to fiddle with their settings on the command line without actively impeding them.

Desktop Linux has gone from assuming users are developers to assuming users are morons who must be protected from themselves. This, and some other imbalances (such as surrendering good sense to a deified few designers) brought on by attempting to imitate the established "friendly" systems without actually understanding them is at the root of the continued failure to gain serious traction.

[FooBarWidget]

As others have pointed out, NetworkManager has a CLI.

[nknight]

If you think nmcli qualifies as command line network configuration, you've never done any advanced network configuration at all. nmcli is a bad joke, with all the limitations of NetworkManager itself, and a really crappy interface to boot.

iproute2 is the gold standard of command-line network configuration on Linux, and for good reason. That NetworkManager conflicts with it instead of taking proper advantage of it is the whole problem.

[FooBarWidget]

Yes. I was never advocating advanced configuration. Since when did Windows and OS X allow advanced network configuration through the command line? NetworkManager is supposed to be a simple, user-friendly tool. My mother does not know what "static IP addresses" or "DHCP" or "gateway" are, she just wants the damn wifi to work. Can you imagine her typing in iproute2 commands?

[nknight]

Windows allows some, I've had to mess with it in the past. Mac OS X allows all the command line network configuration you would expect of a BSD, since, well, it basically is a BSD, while at the same time having a great, user-friendly configuration interface for the 80% case.

I don't care about your mother, she shouldn't be on the command line in the first place, and if she were with nmcli, you'd still have to explain all those terms to her (and they're very basic terms, I refuse to believe your mother is actually that stupid, mine sure isn't).

You've entirely missed the point -- repeatedly. Your mother gets to configure from a friendly GUI limited to the functionality she needs, but anyone who needs anything more advanced is screwed out of it because they can't have the GUI and direct access to underlying functionality, because the former actively impedes the latter. This is a uniquely Desktop Linux state of affairs, no other OS behaves like that.