Bugzilla Bug 197163

The GNOME modem monitor applet doesn't seem to be able to do anything.  I
cannot "Activate" or "Deactivate" as the options in its menu are greyed out. 
When I click on "Properties" I get an error dialog box (will include
screenshot).


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Add Modem Monitor Applet to panel.
2. Click on Properties


Actual Results:  
Error dialog pops up.

Expected Results:  
Some sort of configuration menu, or at least a list of options from how ppp is
configured, so I can select one (e.g. hard-line modem or bluetooth modem).

From googling this issue, I have a feeling this requires "network-admin".  I'm
not sure Gentoo supports/need network-admin.  Regardless, Modem Monitor should
work.

Created an attachment (id=134440) [details]
A screenshot of the error dialog box.

I tried to include the greyed-out options as well, but screenshot would not
trigger with the menu open.

actually it happens with 2.16.2 as well so I'm tempted to say we miss a runtime
dependency.

this actually would also depend on the g-s-t bump but anyway with g-s-t 2.14,
it's not starting (probably gksu issue or some such)

actually this applet isn't available in 2.20.1 it seems. Could you confirm ?

I just checked to see if 2.20.1 was release yet, but it seems 2.20.0 is the
latest release, and I'm too lazy to check cvs.gnome.org. ;-)

I'll happily test if/when it becomes available or emerge-able.

Also, re: "gksu issue or some such", I'm pretty sure at this point it's the
binary "network-admin" that is missing.

(In reply to comment #5)
> I just checked to see if 2.20.1 was release yet, but it seems 2.20.0 is the
> latest release, and I'm too lazy to check cvs.gnome.org. ;-)

erm, actually I'm using 2.20 too. Where does this applet come from then ???

> Also, re: "gksu issue or some such", I'm pretty sure at this point it's the
> binary "network-admin" that is missing.

actually I meant that I used an overlay with an ebuild installing network-admin
and it didn't showed up as well, but gnome-system-tools 2.14 is known to have
some strange behavior with its internal sudo helper. I'll test on a second box
just to be sure.

Re: where is it ...

# package:
$ equery b modem_applet
[ Searching for file(s) modem_applet in *... ]
gnome-base/gnome-applets-2.20.0 (/usr/libexec/modem_applet)

# how to launch it:
GNOME panel -> Add to Panel... -> Modem Monitor

oook, found what's the problem on my 2 of my 3 desktops :

[snip]
checking for system-tools-backends >= 1.1.3... no
configure: WARNING: *** modemlights applet will not be built ***
[snip]

which is completely wrong since I have s-t-b >= 2.4.0

so that's 2 bugs in 1, yay ! :)

So ... this bug is still around, in pure, stable Gentoo GNOME.

I'd really like to bring my modem up and down via this simple applet. 
Otherwise, it should just be pruned from Gentoo GNOME.

I you could get this upstream, that would help. g-s-t 2.14 is dead old and the
network stuff didn't work so well. g-s-t 2.20 is masked in portage but should
"work" for basic network stuff but it's not detected and its maintainer
announced he would like to stop development on g-s-t. Don't know what to expect
from the future.

system-tools-backend-1 is dead old and it's better to make upstream fix it by
using newer s-t-b.

Please open a bug upstream and add the link to the URL field so we can track
it.

Seems that it has been already reported to upstream:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=521595

Maybe http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=359928 would be also related
but I am not sure :-/

Created an attachment (id=151147) [details]
09_modemlights_use_new_gst.patch

Ubuntu is using this patch

Seems it's already fixed in GNOME trunk (see
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=521595 )

Can someone test this with GNOME 2.24?

Upstream claims this is fixed in 2.24.  Please re-open if it's still broken.