On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 1:22 AM, Scott Kitterman <ubu...@kitterman.com> wrote: [...] > For hotels, I can't recall the last time I had one last less then 24 hours. > Even on public wifi (as in coffee shops), the shortest I recall one lasting > was > 4 hours. I agree that every 5 minutes is excessive. > > The fundamental problem with periodics like this is that whatever $PERIOD you > pick, the situation can change immediately after a check. Fundamentally, I > think that this check leaves you knowing less that it probably appears it > does.
I don't disagree -- whatever $PERIOD chosen, the situation can change immediately after the check -- that works on both losing connectivity, and gaining connectivity. I think what probably needs to be clarified here is that it's in no way meant to be used by applications as "I don't have this, so I can't work", because we all know the actual usefulness of the connection may be different for different ports, between checks, etc. What we'd be gaining here would instead be the capacity to inform users that their connection might not be optimal, and that they may not have full connectivity. > If Ubuntu is going to work on mobile devices, it's going to have to deal with > intermittent apparent connectivity (it's not rare for me to have very similar > problems when tethered via my phone - I'm connected to the phone just fine, > but > it's network connection dies for a bit). Captive connections like hotels use > is only one, special case of this. Even if I didn't have reservations about > phoning home as a concept, I don't think it solves enough of a problem to be > worth doing. When your phone's connection fails, doesn't it display a different signal level icon to indicate it's not connected? When tethered, this means you'd have to rely on watching your phone for connection changes since it probably always shows up as an ethernet connection (unless it's tethered over bluetooth DUN). In this case you could get notified about it, but yes, as of the current status of the NM code, you'd have to wait <= 5 minutes. > If I've just connected to a hotel/public wifi, I know I need to go to a web > page and sign in. I think anyone that's ever done this before on any > operating system knows this. Intermittent 3G/4G connection loss produces > similar problems, but is completely unpredictable. I think that's a more > important problem to solve. We have signal level icons for 3G/4G; I'm not sure what else there would be to do over that past using some form of external check to verify that the connectivity is proper. Furthermore, facilitating sign in to portals is a feature that most connection managers have on their roadmap or implemented. We (speaking as a contributor to NM upstream) would like to implement it; ConnMan already has features to help with this (WISPr). / Matt -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
