[ltp] Re: T61 Gutsy > Hardy upgrade almost fixed stuff

[Marius Gedminas]

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First, a disclaimer: for some people Network Manager indeed does not
work.  Sometimes it is a matter of misconfiguration, but more often
there are bugs either in the wifi driver, or in network-manager itself.

Booting a Ubuntu Live CD is one way to see whether network-manager works
on your hardware with the standard configuration.

On Mon, May 05, 2008 at 09:16:42PM -0400, David A. Desrosiers wrote:
> On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 2:47 AM, Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> wrot=
e:
>=20
> > Your statement is trivially false: I am using Network Manager on the
> > laptop on which I write this.
>=20
> Let's start with the basics. Here's nm-editor, launched from my Hardy Her=
on
> install while my wireless network was up and running (with about 15 other
> wireless networks within range of me):
>=20
> http://code.gnu-designs.com/nm-editor_main_gui.png

This is a tool that shows you what network you've successfully connected
to in the past.  Network Manager will automatically reconnect to any of
those, if it finds them, but won't connect to new networks unless you
explicitly ask.  This, however, is not clearly explained anywhere in the
user interface.

> Now what? There is no "Add" button, "Remove" does nothing. No networks are
> shown in the list, including the active network I'm using to get to gmail=
 to
> compose this reply.
>=20
> The "File" menu has one option: "Quit". Not very useful. This is version
> 0.6.6-0ubuntu5 of network-manager-gnome from Ubuntu (the latest version f=
rom
> the repos as of about 4 hours ago).
>=20
> I can, however type in the "Name" field on the Properties side of the
> applet. Attempting to type in the "bssids" portion just beeps at me for
> every keystroke. Then what?

Nothing.  Ignore nm-editor, it's not what you want.

> nm-applet does absolutely nothing when launched from a shell. No output,
> doesn't return (unless I ^C it of course), doesn't launch anything into my
> gnome-panel, nothing.

This is bad.  You should have found a new icon in your notification
area.  Your GNOME panel does have a notification area?  If not, you can
add one.

Besides that, you shouldn't have to start nm-applet by yourself.  In a
fresh Ubuntu setup it is started automatically from the GNOME session.

Also, if you have configured your wireless device in
/etc/network/interfaces (by, for example, using Ubuntu's System ->
Administration -> Network), then Network Manager will assume you want a
static configuration and will then ignore your wireless card.

> So what am I supposed to do next? Where do I "add" a wireless network? Wh=
ere
> are the properties that allow me to specify WPA2+TKIP+SSK, and so on?

When Network Manager works, all you have to do is click on its icon in
the notification area, and select the wireless network you want to
connect to.  If that network is protected, you'll get a popup asking for
the password/passphrase/key/whatever.  If you don't find the network you
want to connect to, wait a few seconds and look again.

If you want to connect to a hidden network, you can click on the Network
Manager icon and select "Connect to other network...".  Then you'll be
able to enter the essid and all the WPA/whatever settings.

If this doesn't work, you can either invest days of your time trying to
figure out where the problem is, filing bug reports, gathering
information, or you could ignore it, use your own custom scripts and
flame on the lists.  Either choice is fine, just please do not imply
that Network Manager is useless to everyone else as well.

> I mean what I originally stated. NetworkManager is completely useless in
> Hardy, and does absolutely nothing. I write what I write for a reason;
> because that's what I mean to say.

While it is completely useless for you, it is extremely useful for me
and a few thousand other people.

Cheers!
Marius Gedminas
--=20
OK, so you're a Ph.D.  Just don't touch anything.

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