Arch Linux

C5OK5Y

Member

Registered: 2010-07-04

Posts: 48

[Solved] Network Manager doesn't save password and more problems...

I have trouble with my newly installed Network Manager. I followed the wiki and installed "networkmanager, network-manager-applet, hicolor-icon-theme and gnome-icon-theme" (I use openbox as WM). I checked the file "/etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf" and put there

[main]
plugins = keyfile
 
[keyfile]
hostname = claudio-desktop    <-- thats my HOSTNAME in /etc/rc.conf

This is my /etc/hosts:

#
# /etc/hosts: static lookup table for host names
#

#<ip-address>    <hostname.domain.org>    <hostname>
127.0.0.1    localhost.localdomain    localhost claudio-desktop

# End of file

I checked that I'm in "network" and "networkmanager" group. I stopped the network interface (# /etc/rc.d/network stop), brang down wlan0 (# ifconfig wlan0 down) and edited /etc/rc.conf:

#lo="lo 127.0.0.1"
#wlan0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(!lo !wlan0)
...
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng hal networkmanager crond alsa)

I also checked that I had dbus installed. I started Network Manager (# /etc/rc.d/networkmanager start), logged out and in but the nm-applet didn't start. I fortunately repaired it by editing "/etc/dbus-1/system.d/NetworkManager.conf" and "/etc/dbus-1/system.d/nm-applet.conf" according to this.

I successfuly conected to my wireless network but after the next reboot NM asked my for my password  to the wireless  network instead of remembering it and I can't get NM to remember it (problem no. 1).

Problem no. 2 is that during shutdown/reboot when arch is stoping daemons NM failes to stop (I get [FAIL]).

Problem no. 3 is that I can't change any preferences in nm-applet > edit connections > wireless > "my connection" > edit because apply button is greyed out (also the checkbox beside "Available to all users").

I have done extensive googling for houres with no results . Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Last edited by C5OK5Y (2010-08-31 19:07:24)

mir

Member

Registered: 2010-08-25

Posts: 59

Re: [Solved] Network Manager doesn't save password and more problems...

Not really an answer to your questions, but I had real trouble with the gnome network manager applet on my mother's laptop from Ubuntu, it kept forgetting the password for the wireless. After quite some time trying to fix it without success, I replaced it with the KDE network manager (inside GNOME). Worked immediately. Perhaps you want to give it a try.

vacant

Member

From: downstairs

Registered: 2004-11-05

Posts: 816

Re: [Solved] Network Manager doesn't save password and more problems...

Like Mir, I found other network managers complicated or flaky. Though I switched to wicd: Comment out all the network stuff in rc.conf, start wicd in DAEMONS and then run wicd as a user to set up your network.

C5OK5Y

Member

Registered: 2010-07-04

Posts: 48

Re: [Solved] Network Manager doesn't save password and more problems...

@mir
I tried to install knetworkmanager but I couldn't build it from the AUR although I had all the dependencies. I'm not sure about kdeplasma-applets-networkmanagement, as I don't have KDE installed, I don't know if it will work on my system. Don't these "plasma" things have to be in a special tray-like place on the desktop? I'm also not shure that I want to have ~ 100MiB of KDE dependencies only because of an applet .

@vacant
I need that my applications that run often or all the time on my PC to be as lightweight as posible because I have only 256MiB of RAM and 866MHz CPU and as Wicd looks like it is programmed in python, I am concerned that it might by more resource hungry. What is your opinion on Wicds' speed against NM?

Thanks for the replies. Any more ideas?

mir

Member

Registered: 2010-08-25

Posts: 59

Re: [Solved] Network Manager doesn't save password and more problems...

ah - this might have changed with KDE 4.5 - this will probably give me headaches when I'll have to do the next upgrade on that laptop

Sorry, but then I cannot help you much. wicd doesn't sound bad. Why not just give it a try and look whether it behaves nice? python isn't necessarily slow or memory-hungry.

C5OK5Y

Member

Registered: 2010-07-04

Posts: 48

Re: [Solved] Network Manager doesn't save password and more problems...

So I decided to change from NM to Wicd. It has all the features I wanted (connect at boot, prefere wired instead of wireless, libnotify (I love it ), and its lightweight (although I think it uses more RAM than NM). But best of all is that it works in comparison to NM . Thanks Mir and Vacant for recomending it to me .

mir

Member

Registered: 2010-08-25

Posts: 59

Re: [Solved] Network Manager doesn't save password and more problems...

Well, it was all Vacant, not me. But I'll probably take good advantage from your experience

C5OK5Y

Member

Registered: 2010-07-04

Posts: 48

Re: [Solved] Network Manager doesn't save password and more problems...

EDIT:
For the shutdown problem I put dbus before hal in my daemons:

DAEMONS=(... dbus hal ...)

Everything else was solved by editing my .xinitrc from:

exec openbox-session

to:

exec ck-launch-session openbox-session

and Networkmanager works again. The reason why I chose Networkmanager over Wicd is because it is more stable for me.