network settings; utter uselessness thereof for PPPoE

The network settings dialog continues its march of utter uselessness in Ubuntu 8.04.

Sure, lots of people have reported individual bugs among the heap of bugs that compise the network settings dialog. All I can do is add my experience to the heap. Maybe we can have a bon-fire! All the bugs will go away, and add to global warming, making our planet all snuggly!

My experience with the network settings dialog is the same as it always was: when it functions, it does so for only the simplest types of network settings: DHCP over ethernet and fixed-IP over Ethernet. (I have been told it also works for competely open Wireless connections, but somehow, I never find those...). Even then, it functions poorly, failing to report what is going on, and taking a very long time to do what little it does.

For all other types of connections (PPP over modem, PPPoE over ethernet, and any Wireless connection involving passwords or encryption), the recommendation is: look around first to see if there are any Mac or Windows users nearby. Make sure they don't see the catastrophe.

The network settings dialog will fail. It will fail without giving any information as to why it failed. It will take *a long time* to fail. It will look stupid. You will feel stupid for having tried it again.

That said, here is my report.

I have a home PPPoE over Ethernet connection. I am using it now. I can set it up by hand in Ubuntu or in Windows.

For my test, I used the Ubuntu 8.04 Live CD of 12/21/07.

Network Settings
    - Wired Connection
        - Properties
            - dialog disabled if click "Enable this connection", enabled otherwise.
    - Point to Point Connection
        - Properties
            Enable this connection (OK)
            Connection type (PPPoE - OK)
                (fields for phone number go away...that's good)
            Type in user name, password... the OK button is still not enabled, so go to next tab
            - Modem settings
                (grayed-out menu...but can choose 'eth0' from it... that's OK)
                go back to first tab
            - Now the fields for phone number are back! What?
            - Anyway, it starts its frantic little dialog "Changing Internet Configuration"
              which just sits there, horribly telling me nothing, except... well, probably
              something is wrong.
And no connection after many minutes.
And no clue as to why.

After fixing the multiple UI errors PLEASE make sure the thing reports what is going on, so the user will have a chance

The developers should be dismissed and told to go play in the street.