> Network configuration (on say, Debian) is still a pain
What specifically is a pain? Have you used it recently?
Maybe my end-user desktop network requirements aren't complex enough but it's been pretty damn smooth in my experience for the last few years. I used to avoid network-manager with wicd, but now it seems pretty stable. I use the network-manager and network-manager-gnome packages to get the toolbar thingy in i3wm, it's very simple to use. I also combine it with wiregaurd using the wg commands.
Are you doing something more sophisticated like routing traffic? or something else in a server context? I literally can't recall having a single networking issue that was Debian's fault over the last few years, throughout using lots of different APs.
I recently installed two Linux VMs on my laptop. One, running the latest Ubuntu, got the network interfaces (yes, I have two defined) working as I wanted. The other one, running CentOS 7.9 (because that's what we're stuck with at $JOB) doesn't, with the same network setup. Both are using systemd (something I've tried to avoid as I'm very old school when it comes to Unix administration [1]) and I've yet to figure out what is going on. The set up is easy, first interface, non-NAT, gets address via DHCP. Second interface, NATted through the laptop. CentOS interfaces are completely borked upon boot up, and it takes about 10 minutes of constant enabling/disabling the interfaces to get them "up". Pre-systemd, I might have had a chance to just hard code the network settings (which would work for my setup). These days? I'm feeling more and more computer illiterate as time goes on.
[1] I'm a developer who can admin a Unix system if forced to, but how to administrate Unix has changed at least three times since I first learned in the mid 90s, and I'm tired of the constant changes (shakes my old-man fists at the sky).
What specifically is a pain? Have you used it recently?
Maybe my end-user desktop network requirements aren't complex enough but it's been pretty damn smooth in my experience for the last few years. I used to avoid network-manager with wicd, but now it seems pretty stable. I use the network-manager and network-manager-gnome packages to get the toolbar thingy in i3wm, it's very simple to use. I also combine it with wiregaurd using the wg commands.
Are you doing something more sophisticated like routing traffic? or something else in a server context? I literally can't recall having a single networking issue that was Debian's fault over the last few years, throughout using lots of different APs.