On Thu, 11 Jul 2024 at 12:12, Lukas Märdian <sl...@debian.org> wrote: > > On 11.07.24 11:13, Marco d'Itri wrote: > > On Jul 11, Philip Hands <p...@hands.com> wrote: > > > >> I've only seen netplan mentioned in passing in this thread so far. > > Because I believe that Netplan is the answer to a question that nobody > > asked here. > > > > It has all the disadvantages of switching to a new configuration format, > > but then it limits you to the features that it actually implements from > > each backend and you have an indirection layer that must be used when > > interacting with the backend daemon. > > Yes, it brings a new configuration format. So do systemd-networkd and > NetworkManager. > > Netplan's feature set is pretty comprehensive and certainly enough for a > default installation, > see its reference: https://netplan.readthedocs.io/en/stable/netplan-yaml/ > > But it's not an indirection layer that MUST be used. Should the features of > Netplan not be enough > for an advanced usecase, everybody is free to write configuration for the > underlying backend directly. > > Netplan will not interfere with that and go out of the way. Just don't write > Netplan configuration > for a specific interface (or all of them) that you want to handle differently.
I appreciate the work you've done on Netplan and I am quite sure your D-I MR should be merged, it looks ready to me. It's good to have this support in the installer. However, I do not think it should be the default. First of all, only Ubuntu uses it, nobody else - as Simon says, we don't want the defaults to be super-special things that nobody else uses. And then again, not your fault in the slightest, but Canonical is known for shifting its priorities every now and then - perfectly normal for a for-profit company, but a bit worrying when one wants to pull all eggs in that basket. And also for the minimal case, an additional layer of indirection and set of dependencies, when there's an alternative that requires none of that, is not the ideal solution. So I am quite sure that yes netplan should be supported in the installer and your MR should be merged, but the new default for the default, simple, wired case should be networkd, and for the GUi/desktop case the default should continue to be NetworkManager.
