Ubuntu Karmic's Network Manager Issues

Since Ubuntu 8.04 aka Hardy Heron, I've had issues with every new release. As Ubuntu evolves into being a viable desktop OS alternative, its complexity has been growing and with the new and improved looks new challenges arise. This bug in particular has been very difficult to diagnose and I can't imagine anyone without enough Linux experience to overcome it on their own, so I decided to summarize the steps I took to fix it ... and vent my frustration at the end.

The Symptom

I came across the issue for the first time while trying Ubuntu's Karmic Netbook remix. After overcoming the typical Broadcom wifi driver, Network Manager would connect, but Firefox would fail to load the web pages 90% of the time. Using ping in the command line worked just fine. Maybe I needed to update the software packages to get the latest patches, surprise, apt-get was having similar problems and timing out. So the problem was deep in the OS layer.

After a lot fiddling and some googling I found bug #417757:

[...] In Karmic, DNS lookups take a very long time with some routers, because glibc's DNS resolver tries to do IPv6 (AAAA) lookups even if there are no (non-loopback) IPv6 interfaces configured. Routers which do not repond to this cause the lookup to take 20 seconds (until the IPv6 query times out). [...]

These routers are common place in many households and most users are completely unaware that they have their own DNS servers, what IPv6 means or even how to update the router's firmware if needed.

The Solution(s)

Going through the comments in the bug I found several recommendations, some made more sense than others, but these are the 2 I used. Most regular users will feel comfortable with these steps. I haven't tried, but it might not be necessary to apply both.

Disable IPv6

You should apply this one especially if the networks to which you connect are not using IPv6 (most home and public networks). Otherwise, skip it. The solution is explained here. To edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file use:

sudo vi /etc/sysctl.conf

Replace vi with your editor of choice. Reboot before retrying the connection.

You can try the setting without changing your system configuration or restarting the machine using the following command:

sudo sysctrl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1

Use OpenDNS or Google DNS Servers

If the previous solution isn't enough and/or you want to try these DNS servers instead of relying on your router or ISP's DNS servers (in many cases it'll improve the DNS lookup performance) edit your /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf file using the following command:

sudo vi /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf

Add the following lines after the line starting with #prepend:

# OpenDNS servers
prepend domain-name-servers 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220;
# Google DNS servers
prepend domain-name-servers 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4;

Or if you want to use the GUI, you can follow the instructions in How to setup Google Public DNS in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, the instructions work with any of the IP addresses above. Once you apply these changes, restart your box and retry.

The Editorial

If you just read the article for the technical content, this is a good spot to stop. If you're interested in my rant, keep going.

It is well known that long term Linux users have been frustrated by the complications that have been popping up with video (in particular dual head setups), sound and networking in the releases post Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy). The last 3 releases have improved the overall GUI usability a lot, but they have introduced a number of bugs and issues that make those improvements irrelevant. It's easy to find articles in the web about these issues and I've been hearing and reading about them at multiple Linux and MySQL forums.

Then there are comment like this one which miss the point completely:

[...] > You can't tell your grandmother to edit some config files because her internet is slow
Does your grandmother use Ubuntu then? If so, then just help her out in fixing the issue :) [...]

This goes against what bug #1 is trying to address: Wider Linux adoption.

My requests to the Ubuntu community are:

1. Stop fiddling with the UI and start solving real usability problems. Without easy display, sound and network integration supporting widespread installed hardware, only the übergeeks are going to use Linux and bug #1 will still remain unsolved long after Ubuntu's Zippy Zebra release (I made up the name).
   
2. This is another example where the Open Source community can be as bad as regular companies addressing real world needs. The OSS advantage is in the community members that, instead of spreading FUD and useless comments and articles, come up with proper suggestions and contributions. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes time to find them and until a given software package is forked, no real progress is made.
   

I promise that on my next article I'll write about a MySQL topic.