20.05.22 06:17 - Simon Lees:
Hi
On 5/19/22 22:48, Hagen Buliwyf wrote:
19.05.22 13:38 - Dominique Leuenberger / DimStar:
On Thu, 2022-05-19 at 11:00 +0000, Dominique Leuenberger wrote:
Packages changed: NetworkManager (1.36.4 -> 1.38.0)
=== Details ===
==== NetworkManager ==== Version update (1.36.4 -> 1.38.0) Subpackages: NetworkManager-lang NetworkManager-pppoe libnm0 typelib-1_0-NM-1_0
- Recommend NetworkNanager-wifi from the main package: after the split, there is currently nothing pulling in NM-wifi. Preferably this would happen based on wifi chips prsence, but that is not yet done (boo#1199550). - Modify NetworkManager.spec: Split into a few small subpackages (bsc#1198128).
BEWARE: NetworkManager has been split into smaller chunks to better server various use cases, making it possible to be installed with smaller foot prints.
Users that decide to 'disable recommends' need to be extra careful here: the NetworkManager-wifi plugin is only recommended (NM on wired does not need the plugin).
Always keep in mind: disabling recommends means you claim you know better than others.
No, I don't claim that.
However the bandwidth available to me does not allow me (neither by cost nor time) to download ~10.000 packages a year which I will never need nor use.
so you have to live with the fact that non- mandatory features (which you would claim mandatory for your machine) are not automatically installed.
This is not about installing this is about the fact that an "cosmetic" update removed (vital) functionality which had been deliberately installed by the user.
The problem is while this is vital functionality for you it isn't vital functionality for everyone think things like container workloads that previously probably used wicked. This is why it makes sense for packages like this to be recommends rather then requires.
Sorry I'm no native English speaker so I probably didn't phrase my concerns correctly. To make it clear: I do not object to packages beeing split (on the contrary). I'm aware of the fact that packages which are important to my system may not be important to any other system. However working in IT for more than thirty years now there is one rule which i consider very important: An update must not break a working system. Before that update every system (using NetworkManager) had installed NetworkManager with wifi-functionality (even the systems setup with --no-recommends). Therefore an update which removed that functionality without notice carried the risk to break at least some systems. A well-behaved update would have applied some tests (like: does the system have wifi hardware, are there any NetworkManager wifi connections defined, ...) or would have asked the user before removing the functionality. Even forcing the installation of the new wifi package by default would have done no harm (because that functionality had been there before anyway). Don't get me wrong: A fresh install is a different situation. So if one does a fresh install and decides to go for --no-recommends it is perfectly OK to not install the wifi package automatically. I spent some of my time watching various German openSUSE forums and I can see that "incidents" like the one discussed here (or the split of the bluez package a few weeks ago) are driving people away from using openSUSE Tumbleweed (or even openSUSE at all). On one hand you make the system more modular but on the other hand you are discouraging people to make use of that modularity. Regards Hagen