Dear Daniel, and all, > On 2 Sep 2024, at 22:56, Daniel Gröber <d...@darkboxed.org> wrote: > > Hi Andrej, > > On Mon, Sep 02, 2024 at 09:02:43PM +0200, Andrej Shadura wrote: >> On Mon, 2 Sep 2024, at 19:41, Daniel Gröber wrote: >>> You're continuing to confirm my pre-existing view that netplan infantilizes >>> it's users as you're applying the same thinking to the entire Debian >>> community here. >> >> I don’t think this language is particularly helpful. > > I'm sorry you think so. I'm trying my best to represent my current view as > accurately as possible so as to give Lukas a tangible way to try and change > it. > >>> In my mind Debian is an operating system for experts (perhaps >>> aspiring). Treating users like they are going to hurt themselves if we >>> listen to them is not acceptable conduct in this community in my opinion. >> >> Debian is an operating system for everyone. For experts. For novices. For >> non-technical users. In any case, even experts often want to have a >> break and have things just work without having to write kilobytes of >> config. > > See that's my own biases shining through :) > > Ofc. Debian is for everyone. I should have been more clear. When I say this > I think mainly of the base system, servers, routers, embedded stuff and the > like. Desktops and other environments already made different decisions and > I respect that. > > On a mildly personal note I've just come back from bringing up and running > a large event network as part of the NOC team at Hack ma's castle (an > Austrian hacker community event). Since someone on the team decieded to use > sd-networkd on the gateway (unsuccessfully) my experience in fixing the > network gave me a much better idea of where my tangible problems with it's > design lie. > > In short: Networking is complicated. I don't think abstraction > helps. Simpler is better. IMO this applies to both sd-networkd and netplan. > > Don't get me wrong I'm sure both have valid use-cases, unique features or > better ergonomics for some users but those aren't arguments for a change in > default. > > This also made me wonder: have any of us here actually been in the trenches > of networking like I just experienced? If not I return to the idea of the > "ivory tower".
I’m a system administrator, and with my colleagues, we manage approximately 1200 servers from physical installation to managing users’ applications and everything in between. This includes network design, wiring and implementation. To be honest, not of our fleet is completely Debian, but many are, and I personally prefer to work with NetworkManager rather than Netplan. The reasons are numerous. The biggest positive for NetworkManager for me is, how I can configure my network interfaces interactively, like I configure another networking hardware. I drop to CLI, configure the network the way I like, give it a last peek, and commit, then everything works. Another reason I like NetworkManager is how it shows and manages connections via nmcli (e.g. nmcli con show). It allows me to see connections in a tangible manner, and work with them. Lastly, Having the same networking stack from Desktop to Server has its upsides, like knowing a single stack and being able to go a long way (I migrated my Desktop to NetworkManager later, so the path was from server to Desktop for me). Also, I’d argue that being able to name/label connections is nice, because when you add 4 VLANs on top of an untagged connection, knowing which connection goes where with human readable labels is a plus. While not present in Debian, another positive of NetworkManager is, how it can be translated to network scripts in a particular distribution bought by IBM and its derivatives. Any change made in these files are seen by NetworkManager and vice versa. I’d love to see Debian to adapt a similar system, but not with the same format of the said distro, please. > >>>> IMO, the data is already there in all the different (Mini-)DebConf and >>>> email discussion over the past couple of year. If people were just happy >>>> with /etc/network/interfaces, we wouldn't have this discussion year after >>>> year after year.. >> >>> The "data" sources you mention are severely biased in one way or >>> another. You complain about unusable data above only to suggest even more >>> obviously unusable data here. I don't find this very convincing. >> >> Data point: I’m a previous maintainer of ifupdown. I don’t use it anymore >> and don’t think it’s a very good default for Debian these days. > > I'd love to hear about your perspective and why/where/how ifupdown failed > you. I have my own list of gripes with it but I'm still enthusiastic about > my prospects of being able to fix them. > >>>> I'm afraid all of this will just further delay the decision making for >>>> another year/Debian release. >> >>> So what? So far you're the only one complaining about this. What skin do >>> you have in the game if we don't move forward on this other than having an >>> obviously biased interest in having netplan be a standard? >> >> Please, can we have no conflict of interest accusations? > > It's not an accusation, just an observation. I don't resent Lukas doing > this. I don't think it's wrong. If netplan was my project you better > believe I'd be here doing the same thing. > >> Others might not complain loudly because they don’t have energy to argue >> (like myself). > > I try not to weight complaints by loudness TBH. A short statement would do > just as well. > >>> Consider that for you time is an ally, being employed to work on this >>> (AFAICT?). For the rest of us not so much. Debian is a primarily a >>> volunteer project. Please stop pushing for doing things faster. >> >> I don’t think Lukas is rushing things too much. We should have had this >> conversation ages ago. Perhaps I should have started it instead of >> resigning as the maintainer back in the day. > > How late the conversation is doesn't change how long it takes to have it > properly. I can tell you for sure that a year or so ago I wouldn't have > been involved so things would have been much less complicated ;P > > --Daniel Best Regards, Hakan
