Hi Lamar Owen!

 On 2012.04.09 at 13:35:36 -0400, Lamar Owen wrote next:

> In 2004, when NetworkManager first came on the scene, the opposite was true, where any network connectivity required either distribution-specific tools or text editing of config files, regardless of network technology.  While NM is desktop-centric (not laptop-centric, incidentally) it works fine for me for a number of servers, a number of desktop workstations (not laptops), as well as for a handful of laptops.  It's not hard; and if the mouse walks you can't use the older system-config-network GUI either.  As Pat mentions, nmcli works to do network startup by connection name.  There is a somewhat experimental cli networkmanager configurator called 'cnetworkmanager' it isn't yet complete.
> 
> It isn't as buggy as it used to be, and it is being developed by people who aren't just saying that it works on their laptop.

Sadly, last time I saw every guide on how to setup virtual machines
(KVM) in bridge configuration started with "turn off network manager"..
I had to ask people to turn it off for at least 5 systems out of 15
running Linux at our work solely for that reason; desktop systems, I
mean (Ubuntu & Fedora mostly). That's kind of a big problem still, and
definitely no-go for NM on servers..

Not all servers need bridging, but it's also incompatible with trunks
too. And once you find that half of your servers can't use NM anyway,
you turn it off on the rest of them for consistency, to ease
administration..

-- 

Vladimir