Bug#681834: network-manager, gnome, Recommends vs Depends

[Ian Jackson]

Russ Allbery writes ("Bug#681834: network-manager, gnome, Recommends vs Depends"):
> Michael Biebl <biebl at debian.org> writes:
> > Also, as an alternative if you can't use network-manager for whatever
> > reasons,  you can install gnome-core and disable network-manager. This
> > is as simple as
> 
> > "update-rc.d network-manager disable"
> 
> [...]
> 
> > As for the situation where nm is installed but doesn't manage the
> > network connection: This is actually extremely confusing to users as
> > various bug reports have shown.
> 
> Are these two points consistent?  In other words, *is* it as simple as
> running:
> 
>     update-rc.d network-manager disable
> 
> and installing wicd or something else, or is that configuration "extremely
> confusing" to users?  Or did you mean something different by the last
> paragraph?

No, I think you have read Michael correctly.  The "extremely
confusing" situation you get if you disable it as suggested above is
the same "extremely confusing" situation you get if you deinstall it.

Apart from any damage done to your alternative networking arrangements
by the maintainer scripts, possible transient interruption to your
networking while you attempt to fix the configuration (hopefully not
remotely), etc.

(And it's not clear to me how the gnome programs react to n-m being
started and then stopped.  Transiently having n-m running because the
package gets installed and then disabled might mean that some of them
need to be restarted AFAICT from the reports on -devel.)

Ian.