> For example, another one would be connecting to a VPN, a task that NetworkManager greatly simplifies, assuming that such integration is available of course (e.g. if you think connecting to a Wifi network is problematic, try connecting to a L2TP over IPSec VPN).
That's because there is equally no uniform and simple way to connect to use those, either. The problem is that the "simplification" that NetworkManager provides is illusory. Yes, it provides an interface that is easier to access, and all the complexity is moved in the back, where it's handled by NetworkManager.
Unfortunately, the mechanisms through which it does that are fiercely complicated, too. I've had NetworkManager break on me countless times (I worked for a company that developed networking equipment for a while, so I've interacted with NM a lot), for a lot of silly things -- making me end up with slightly incorrect configurations or reapplying settings at weird times for no apparent reasons.
The end result is anything but simplified: not only do I have to deal with the inherent complexity of a quirky VPN connection -- now I also have to understand how NetworkManager reasons about it and figure out where it's wrong.
I also think it's misguided to have a single tool handle things so disparate like VPN and WiFi. It's not like you're ever going to be able to expose those through a unified interface -- NetworkManager's own D-Bus-based API being a prime example of that.
> There's also the issue that the simplicity exposed in your example is a little misleading. Will the system persist that command and re-execute it on boot? Will it remember my previously used Wifi networks and connect automatically should I want that? How can I view the available Wifi networks in range? Being able to connect to a Wifi network using a simple ifconfig command is great, but the notion that your 80% of use-cases is the same as everybody else's 80% is misguided at best.
You scan for networks with ifconfig scan.
The system will not persist commands (arguably, a good decision) but persisting those settings is pretty easy -- you just add the same parameters you pass to ifconfig in /etc/hostname.. (The same parameters as in argv[1:n]).
The only thing it won't do out of the box is automatically connect to previously used wifi networks. I suspect none of the OpenBSD developers want that. I only needed a feature like that once, a few months ago when I moved to a new apartment and had no Internet connection of my own (cable company is shit) so I had to snoop from the free wireless of nearby cafes. The fact that the interface to ifconfig is so simple and uniform meant that the whole thing was a ten-line shell script to scan for, and connect to previously known networks, and a shell alias to save the current network to the list of known networks.
There's an even easier way, using virtual networks, but I didn't know about it at the time.
> So you're saying that xBSD is simpler / better, yet you can't use it on your laptop, as it lacks things you need. Well, no shit.
I have a Windows laptop, which I also had when I ran Linux. My day-to-day laptop runs OpenBSD.