[SOLVED] Cinnamon / NWManager v1 Incompatibility (not DHCP Related)

Question

I was testing an Asus motherboard with onboard WiFi controller (Broadcom BCM4352 802.11ac) just to see if it worked (I normally only use a wired connection on this PC), and surprisingly all went well with the new broadcom-wl driver and patches.
I am using static addresses, so I haven't experienced any of the NetworkManager v1.0.0 DHCP issues many are talking about on the forums, e.g:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=192910
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 7#p1496387
I did, however, have a different issue after the update of NetworkManager to version 1.0.0 when used in combnation with Cinnamon.
I had to connect to wireless via the 'nm-cli' command because the NetworkManager applet would throw an error when I attempted to use its 'Network Settings' menu item. The settings dialog would pop up along with an error dialog that said:
The system network services are not compatible with this version.
Also, even though the settings dialog opened, it was crippled (rather than showing WiFi, Wired and Network Proxy, only Network Proxy was visible).
So, not finding any info after searching the forums, I dug through the Cinnamon source code and found the error message in the source for 'cinnamon-control-center'. Turns out that the file, 'cc-network-panel.c', contains a version test for NetworkManager. The relevant code is as follows:
/* is it too new or old */
if (major > 0 || minor > 9 || (minor <= 8 && micro < 992)) {
If any portion of that test is true, it triggers the error dialog. Obviously, installing NetworkManager v1.0.0 is going to be a problem where:
major = 1
minor = 0
micro = 0
I'm not really sure I agree with the way the test was written (even aside from the issue with NM 1.x.x versions), but I just wanted to get things working without a major rewrite, so I wrote the following patch without much thought for anything other than adjusting the test for inclusion of major=1 / minor = 0:
diff -aur cinnamon-control-center-2.4.2/panels/network/cc-network-panel.c cinnamon-control-center-2.4.2_new/panels/network/cc-network-panel.c
--- cinnamon-control-center-2.4.2/panels/network/cc-network-panel.c 2014-11-26 16:11:51.000000000 -0500
+++ cinnamon-control-center-2.4.2_new/panels/network/cc-network-panel.c 2015-01-30 00:07:36.000000000 -0500
@@ -1327,7 +1327,8 @@
/* is it too new or old */
- if (major > 0 || minor > 9 || (minor <= 8 && micro < 992)) {
+ /* if (major > 0 || minor > 9 || (minor <= 8 && micro < 992)) { */
+ if ((major > 1 && minor > 0) || (major == 0 && minor <= 8 && micro < 992)) {
ret = FALSE;
/* do modal dialog in idle so we don't block startup */
The above should work for the NetworkManager versions the Cinnamon developers deemed appropriate PLUS it allows for version 1.0.0 (tested v1.0.0 and v0.9.10.0).
Hopefully, this will be addressed officially in the near future.
PS
I fully expect someone to tell me that I missed one or more forum posts about this issue because I can't believe it hasn't been discussed before now ... especially in light of the other issues with NetworkManager v1.0.0 currently being discussed.
Last edited by MrWeatherbee (2015-03-07 17:54:35)

Answer 1

aidenir wrote:I ran into the same problem today when I moved my work laptop from ubuntu to arch. Downgrading Networkmanager made the cinnamon settings work, however that older version crashes when I connect to openvpn connection. Is there an easy way of applying this patch on a running system?
Not sure what you mean by 'easy way of applying this patch on a running system'? It'd be much harder to apply it to a system that wasn't running.
The basic steps are the same for any package patch.
- Get a copy of the original PKGBUILD and related files (.install file, other patches, etc.) from ABS or from the Arch packages web portal:
https://projects.archlinux.org/svntogit … rol-center
- Modify the PKGBUILD as necessary (to include the patch, etc.)
- place the patch in the build-folder with PKGBUILD and related files
- run makepkg (as normal user)
- install the new package (as root)
- enjoy
Is that easy enough?
Here's the modified PKGBUILD I used:
# $Id: PKGBUILD 123172 2014-11-27 02:40:19Z faidoc $
# Maintainer: Alexandre Filgueira <[email protected]>
# Based on gnome-control-center:
# Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig) <[email protected]>
# Jan de Groot <[email protected]>
pkgname=cinnamon-control-center
pkgver=2.4.2
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="The Control Center for Cinnamon"
arch=('i686' 'x86_64')
depends=('cinnamon-settings-daemon' 'cinnamon-translations' 'cinnamon-menus'
'libgnomekbd' 'network-manager-applet')
optdepends=('gnome-color-manager: for color management tasks')
makedepends=('intltool' 'gnome-common' 'docbook-xsl')
url="https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-control-center"
install=cinnamon-control-center.install
license=('GPL')
options=('!emptydirs')
groups=('aidenir_modified')
source=("$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.gz::https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-control-center/archive/$pkgver.tar.gz"
'networkmanager_version_check.patch')
sha256sums=('7d25193a3cc13c12f22864f3c9a907acfaa616392cb2b7ab4e0624f0d200f188'
'f55eb718462250aeba0e3a29db6b1c2b22697ea9f5b8224c293f5e4823ae75cd')
prepare() {
cd $pkgname-$pkgver
patch -Np1 -i ../networkmanager_version_check.patch
build() {
cd $pkgname-$pkgver
./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc \
--localstatedir=/var --disable-static \
--enable-systemd \
--disable-update-mimedb
#https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=656229
sed -i -e 's/ -shared / -Wl,-O1,--as-needed\0 /g' -e 's/ if test "$export_dynamic" = yes && test -n "$export_dynamic_flag_spec"; then/ func_append compile_command " -Wl,-O1,--as-needed"\n func_append finalize_command " -Wl,-O1,--as-needed"\n\0/' libtool
make
package() {
cd $pkgname-$pkgver
make DESTDIR="$pkgdir" install
# Remove unused stuff
make -C panels/sound DESTDIR="$pkgdir" uninstall
make -C panels/sound/data DESTDIR="$pkgdir" install
make -C shell DESTDIR="$pkgdir" uninstall-binPROGRAMS uninstall-directoryDATA uninstall-uiDATA
rm "$pkgdir"/usr/share/applications/cinnamon-{control-center,datetime-panel,region-panel,sound-panel}.desktop
rm -R "$pkgdir/etc"
# Fix a warning
chown 102:0 "$pkgdir/usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d"
chmod 700 "$pkgdir/usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d"
Compare this PKGBUILD to the original, and you'll see that only a few things were added:
groups=('aidenir_modified')
The 'groups=' option is used to identify this package as a member of a group of your choosing (I, of course, did not use 'aidenir_modified' for my group, but took the liberty here, as an example, of using your online name. In conjunction with this, you add the same group to the '/etc/pacman.conf' IgnoreGroup option (e.g.,  IgnoreGroup= aidenir_modified), and this will prevent the unpatched, official 'cinnamon-control-center' package from overwriting your patched package. As soon as the official package is fixed, you can change or override that 'ignore' setting to allow the official package to upgrade your patched package.
source=("$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.gz::https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-control-center/archive/$pkgver.tar.gz"
'networkmanager_version_check.patch')
sha256sums=('7d25193a3cc13c12f22864f3c9a907acfaa616392cb2b7ab4e0624f0d200f188'
'f55eb718462250aeba0e3a29db6b1c2b22697ea9f5b8224c293f5e4823ae75cd')
The two snippets above simply:
1) add the patch file to the source array;
2) add the sha256 hash of the patch file to the hash array.
When you create your patch file (likely via copy-and-paste from this page), re-calculate the hash and change it in the PKGBUILD if necessary.
prepare() {
cd $pkgname-$pkgver
patch -Np1 -i ../networkmanager_version_check.patch
Finally, the above snippet adds the 'patch' command to the PKGBUILD's 'prepare()' function.
Edit = code alignment
Last edited by MrWeatherbee (2015-02-02 06:45:39)