Bill Nottingham wrote:
Philip Prindeville (philipp_subx(a)redfish-solutions.com) said:
> What? No. You can have conditional requirements in the RPM... such
> as "*iff* the hardware I'm running on has a wireless NIC, then require
> wpa_supplicant." So the RPM can detect a wireless adapter and
> conditionally define a Requires: wpa_supplicant line in the NetworkManager
> RPM.
>
Runtime adding of dependencies based on PCI/USB/etc. probing...? I'm
pretty sure RPM can't do that.
Look at /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/network-functions, in
particular is_wireless_device().
Also look at how "service network status" works.
> The user is also completely capable of manually installing
wpa_supplicant
> if he knows he will be using a plug-in wireless card (though more and
> more wireless cards are mini-PCI, and hence don't get unplugged much).
>
> This would be better than having an unconditional requirement for wireless
> support in wired-only (desktop) environments.
>
Currently:
- user uses wireless. It just works.
- user doesn't use wireless. It just works, and they have an extra package.
Your proposal:
- user uses wireless. They must remember to install a specifically named
package, otherwise, it fails completely.
No, only for plug-in wireless users. But they need to do that anyway.
(for the aforementioned chicken-and-the-egg reasons...)
-Philip
- user doesn't use wireless. It works.
How is this better *for the user*?
Bill