How/why does network-manager interfere with /etc/resolve.conf

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

On Thu, 03 Dec 2009, john wrote:

> I guess I don't understand how network-manager, dbus-subsystem, etc,
> etc, work with regards to networking. I feel like it's getting harder
> and harder to figure out "who's in charge"

I feel your pain.  You get to know how to use a whole heap of config files
and commands and then the goal posts move 40 yards left.

Perhaps ironically, this is all done in the name of simplicity for users --
so they don't have to edit the config files.  I have to say it has helped
me when I was able to point and click a cisco VPN set up through network
manager in thirty seconds.  I did manage to set it up using the config
files too, but it was definitely quicker and easier using network manager.
If Ubuntu is to be a real desktop solution, your marketing director needs
to be able to set up a VPN with either no or minimal help over the phone
from his IT staff.  Config files are not an option.

Windows went through a similar process back around v3.1 -> v95.  Up to 3.1,
practically every application (opera, netscape, paint shop pro, ...) and
even Windows itself had its own .ini file.  Some of those settings were
configurable in the UI but many of them you just had to open the .ini file
and edit it yourself.  As a geek, I used to like that "simple" way to get
straight to the application's settings.  Then the windows registry became
the place to store all this.  I never got the hang of it¹.  

Gnome went through a similar thing with gconf which I've never really
gotten the hang of either.  On the other hand, I very rarely need to know
anything about it.

It's good and bad at the same time.  Your life is simplified until you want
to do something they haven't (yet) implemented simplicity for.

Gavin

¹ Shortly afterward, I bought my first PC running Windows 98 first edition
  and the horror of it made me try Redhat 6.1.  I haven't actively used
  a Windows desktop since.