Arch Linux

pritamps

Member

Registered: 2011-03-27

Posts: 10

Network manager issues on Laptop

I'm using gnome shell from the testing and gnome-unstable repositories (the Arch way).

I'm having a lot of issues (wireless) with network manager:

1/ Shows home networks at work and work networks at home
2/ Keeps asking for key even though I'm entering the correct one while the same connection through 'nmcli' works just fine
3/ Doesn't show my saved networks and doesn't connect to them automatically. Again, I have to use 'nmcli'

I don't know if these are bugs with network manager or whether I did something wrong in the configuration files. In any case, I've decided to switch to 'wicd'.

However, I used to use 'wicd' on Ubuntu a few years ago and a problem was that I couldn't connect to VPN (which I need at work). This was the only reason I was hanging on to Network Manager. I looked online and this doesn't seem to have changed.

Are there solutions to connect to VPN (PPTP) without network manager. I remember trying the pptpd and kvpnc without much success. There was a plan on the wicd project page to implement PPTP VPN in 2008..does anyone know if this has been done already?

whitethorn

Member

Registered: 2010-05-02

Posts: 153

Re: Network manager issues on Laptop

Well you could use wicd to connect to the access points then use vpnc for vpn.  You just need to create a config file for vpnc or from the command line.  I just did a quick search looks like the gentoo wiki page has a pretty good explanation for vpnc.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/vpnc-howto.xml

pritamps

Member

Registered: 2011-03-27

Posts: 10

Re: Network manager issues on Laptop

I actually used to use wicd and vpnc which is meant for the CISCO VPN. But then my university switched to Microsoftp PPTP.

There was a utility called pptplinux or something like that, but I never did get that to work with our university network while network manager seems to work without any troubles at all..

whitethorn

Member

Registered: 2010-05-02

Posts: 153

Re: Network manager issues on Laptop

Oh right, I used to also use networkmanager with vpnc and pptp, but my university now switched to Juniper vpn and it works fine with linux.  Hmm I guess you'll have to get network manager working then