NetworkManager announced a new 0.3.1 version release last week. Some cool big changes were the addition of new icons, non-broadcast ESSID support and a much better applet. The new applet has been moved into the systray for now, until we get the panel applet situation cleaned up.

We have a new email list for those who have questions about NetworkManager (check out the archives with patches already) and how it works. We’re also looking to start more discussion on how we can integrate more applications to use NetworkManager as a networking service. Internally we’ve already thought about lots of different applications that would benefit from knowing if you’ve unplugged your laptops network cable.

Dan Williams worked on making sure there was a nice NetworkManager DBUS API doc to describe how to use the D-BUS calls to activate NetworkManager. He’s also put up other cool architecture images at the new web site.

NetworkManager Architecture

We’d like to get a lot of testing on NetworkManager, here are links for various distros

• Debian or Ubuntu
• A message from Robert Paskowitz gives the ebuilds you need for Gentoo

• Fedora users can yum install NetworkManager NetworkManager-gnome
• There is support for slackware in the backend, but no slackware packages yet
• Everyone else, see the Download & Contribute Page