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Propose your solution
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ziroday
(Brainstorm moderator)
wrote on the 29 Jan 09 at 03:56
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You can trigger a rescan by disabling and then re-enabling wifi, however this isn't overly user friendly. I believe NM is meant to periodically scan as you go.
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andruk
(Idea reviewer)
wrote on the 29 Jan 09 at 07:29
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It would be better to give the user a completely unambiguous option to rescan the wireless networks, just so they don't get confused.
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Arnaudus
wrote on the 29 Jan 09 at 09:03
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Can you split your idea between rationale / solution? The way you wrote it make impossible to propose alternatives. The problem is:
"It is currently not easy to rescan the wireless networks in Network manager", and you propose a solution. One solution could be: "The current way to do (disable Wireless/enable Wireless) is already intuitive, given the the action is useless (the wireless networks are already scanned quite often). "
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kreep
wrote on the 29 Jan 09 at 11:51
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arnaudus: what you're proposing is a "do nothing" or "negative" solution. you might just as well vote down all the current solutions, to the same effect.
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Arnaudus
wrote on the 29 Jan 09 at 15:20
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@kreep: NOOOOOO please. I've seen this stupid idea even on the moderator mailing list (that "Do nothing" is equivalent to a negative vote everywhere), and I can't understand how people cannot understand the difference. It is totally obvious to me that "Do nothing" means: "I don't want anything to change because I disagree with the rationale"", while a negative vote everywhere, including at "do nothing", means "I agree with the rationale but none of the proposed solutions seem relevant to me".
The only explanation for people supporting the idea that "do nothing" is not an idea is simple: some people are just jealous that the "do nothing" solution can bring "free" positive votes to "lazy" people. How childish it is! We are not here to improve our ranking or make sure that the ranking game is fair, but to propose constructive ideas to improve Ubuntu... and demoting ideas on which people disagree! Therefore, the "do nothing" option is a very clever trick to bypass the lack of voting for or against a rationale.
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cheesehead
(Brainstorm admin)
wrote on the 29 Jan 09 at 15:54
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How strange...my N-M constantly finds new networks. Apparently it is already scanning. Perhaps the rationale needs to be explained a bit more.
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iwlist [interface] scan ?
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Arnaudus: I don't see the action as useless at all. Network Manager doesn't rescan networks as much as you might think, and its ridiculous to make the user wait for it to do so automatically.
Dizzle7677: Yes, iwlist scan is exactly what I'm proposing nm-applet do through a right click option.
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I think that this is a critical feature, should be implemented as soon as possible to NM-a!
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Mads-hk
wrote on the 1 Feb 09 at 10:34
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network-manager is much easier for the user then wicd, which looks pro, but harder to configure... which makes network-manager easier and better for the end user...
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Why would you ever want a button to do something that should just be done automatically?
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@Endolith: AFAIK, scanning all the time will never allow a card to go into its power saving mode.
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@roshan.george
Does it need to scan all the time? Why can't it just scan automatically when needed?
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@Endolith: Ah, I see, so you mean that it should scan as soon as you left-click the wireless indicator to see the list of networks?
I misunderstood. That is fine. I still prefer the button, but that's probably the click->result thing is ingrained in me.
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For anyone who hasn't experienced this, lemme just say that I -always- experience it after returning from a suspend (no network is connected to automatically for two or three minutes, and even when the applet icon is clicked, the wireless network list comes up blank, requiring jumping through hoops like enable/enable wireless to manually refresh the wireless network list now instead of passively waiting). Of course, that's no guarantee that you'll be able to replicate it that way, and I'm guessing other people may be seeing it happen in other circumstances as well.
Based on the linked documents above, I believe this is a bug:
The first link says that the behavior should be "If you click on the Applet Network Manager will initiate a scan request." This does not happen for me when the computer returns from sleep, as clicking on the network applet manager does -not- initiate a rescan, while disabling/enabling wireless does.
There may also be a bug in there that perhaps returning from suspend should be triggering an automatic rescan.
I suspect the problem is that all upstream people are saying "give network-manager a button to rescan", the developers are saying "network-manager should do this automatically, so we wontfix", and perhaps no-one is clearly reporting what would be considered legitimate bugs about how the simple methods that -should- be causing a rescan (like clicking the applet) are not working.
So how can we make some clear bug reports that the network-manager developers will -want- to solve?
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Ok, so having delved into it in more depth via the developer's blog (http://clarkbw.net/blog/2007/10/16/refresh-in-reactive-displays/) and (http://clarkbw.net/blog/2007/10/17/scanning-for-feedback/) the issue is this:
The developer has a deep understanding of refreshing network lists and what will happen if people get a "refresh" button that shouldn't be needed, and refuses to mask driver or OS problems that cause delays in network list refresh by coding in a manual refresh that would force the users to establish a habit of manually refreshing the list all the time.
So the solution isn't simple and could be brainstormed about, but it isn't going to be a manual solution.
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The other issue (and I might be wrong here, so please correct me if I am) is that if Network Manager already auto scans at a regular interval, this might be a big battery drainer for laptops. A manual scan would help alleviate this.
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"When would you *not* want the list refreshed?"
If your Wireless was constantly searching for networks your Wireless connection/speed would be very crappy
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Fade
wrote on the 16 Feb 09 at 01:06
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How is your laptop meant to know that you've moved location or set up an additional network?
It seems currently it refreshes every few minutes, having a way to force that refresh would be a good thing.
Having your wireless adaptor constantly scanning for new networks is not a good thing for what should be obvious reasons.
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To quote a network manager developer statement:
Comment #8 from Dan Williams (NetworkManager developer, points: 18)
2008-01-23 22:31 UTC [reply]
r3262 of the stable branch fixes some deficiencies of the scan algorithm. NM
will scan every 20 seconds for 2 minutes, then bump the scan interval up every
120 seconds thereafter. If the device is deactivated, NM will bump the scan
interval back to 20 seconds for 2 minutes, then up to 120 seconds thereafter.
If the user interacts with the NM applet, NM will bump the scan interval back
to 20 seconds, and immediately scan if no scan was done in the past 20 seconds.
This should fix many of the complaints about the speed of updating.
The other issue might be the driver; some drivers (especially mac80211 based
ones in recent kernels like ipw4965) are still buggy and don't report complete
scan results when asked to scan. You can test this by executing (as root)
"/sbin/iwlist scan" and seeing how many APs you get back, and
comparing that against how many you expect to get back. If the driver is
broken, then NM certainly isn't going to work very well.
So bugs could be posted against http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=498887 if you're not seeing response times like that, assuming you didn't just return from suspend/hibernation/boot, since there are specific triggers that ubuntu is supposed to use to cause a NetworkManager rescan when returning from those events, so bugs relating to that would be better suited for reporting in ubuntu's launchpad https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/130786 .
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theUg
wrote on the 19 Feb 09 at 05:12
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I also think using dedicated button for refreshing is redundant. Applet supposed to do it as it is, and algorythm described by developers appears perfectly reasonable. So the emphasis should be on clearing applet from bugs and getting the drivers straight.
As for switching the networks while moving the machine, there should be something like a tooltip warning when the signal strength goes below 10-15% (or any customizable interval).
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Cé
wrote on the 19 Feb 09 at 16:56
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At work, we have an accespoint that doesn't broadcast it's SSID. It doesn show up in the applet, it does show up in the output of the following command:
sudo iwlist eth1 scan
Is there any way the applet can be changed to show invisible networks?
Best regards,
Cedric
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theUg
wrote on the 21 Feb 09 at 19:50
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Previous comment is off topic, really, and better be asked on forums/IRC. But, technically, there is an option in netrork-monitor to connect to a hidden wireless network of which I do not know much, though.
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