installing ubuntu-desktop package on ubuntu-server breaks wlan-config in netplan

[Oliver Rath]

Installing Ubuntu 17.10 server uses netplan for wlan-configuration, if the wlan-device is the primary device.

After this, installing the ubuntu-desktop package leaves the netplan-config untouched, so that the graphical wlan search is unsuccessfull.

After deleting the netplan-file in /etc/netplan/ or setting it to

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: NetworkManager

the graphical wlan search works without further problems.

Im not sure, where is the best place to repair this issue.

- using network-manager also in server environment
- replacing netplan-file while installing ubuntu-desktop
- adding some extra config in netplan-directory, so the network-manager support is additive (is this possible?)
- remove the netplan-config while installing ubuntu-desktop

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1735979/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Lukas Märdian (slyon)]

Yes, this is actually the expected behavior. If netplan is configured to use the systemd-networkd backend for a given network interface (i.e. as set up by a default server installation) the "graphical UI" (NetworkManager) will ignore that interface; otherwise there would be conflicts

As you mentioned this can be changed by adopting the netplan configuration in /etc/netplan/*.yaml, defining the NetworkManager renderer, after which the interface will be handled by NM and can be controlled through the "graphical UI" and other NetworkManager tools, like "nmcli".

I don't think the user's configuration should be overwritten by installing a meta-package like "ubuntu-desktop".