Arch Linux

carrouf

Member

Registered: 2007-01-06

Posts: 34

NetworkManager/KNetworkManager VS Arch's network profiles

Hi all,

I am trying to find out which network connectivity method is the best for my laptop, especially concerning wireless : NetworkManager or standard network with profiles ?

NetworkManager:
  After testing with two laptop computers (Compal CL56 and Asus G1), this method could be the best but is highly bugged. Sometimes the KnetworkManager icon does not show in the systray : you have to kill the app and restart it, then select the appropriate network profile. Unaccpetable. Sometimes KNetworkManager wants to connect for minutes to my wired network card while it is not plugged. At system shutdown, networkmanager outputs a ton of errors and warning message.
Does someone have a successful experience with NetWorkManager and KDE ? I'd be really interested.

Arch's network profiles :
  I find them cool and quite simple to use. But there is apparently no gui for that and, above all, no wireless network autodetection system at bootup.
Also I found a bug with network profiles at handling essids : you get errors if you want to connect to essids containing a white space. For example if your wireless network is named "My Network", netcfg will output errors. You'll say : "why would one would use a wireless network name with a white space ?". I don't know, but I did ! I changed it to "My_Network" on the router, changed my profile with "My_Network" as essid and now this is ok. Apparently, for my Linksys wireless router, naming wireless network with a white space is a perfectly legal operation. As a result and for now, this means that Arch's profiles are not able to connect to any network containing a white space. This is truly a bug with arch's profiles : I can connect without a problem to "My Network" with command line "iwconfig" (using quotes, of course) or with WirelessAssistant software.

Regards/

STiAT

Member

From: Vienna, Austria

Registered: 2004-12-23

Posts: 606

Re: NetworkManager/KNetworkManager VS Arch's network profiles

Wireless autoconnection detection is to come within the next releases of the scripts if i understood what iphitus is working on.

KNetworkManager IS a bug... well, networkmanager is. It fails often to connect, randomly looses hal connections, can't properly shut down, there's no clean applet / startup routine for kde for KNetworkManager. The one of gnome works by far better, that's one of the efforts of the tall distributions (all pushing gnome, not kde).

I'm using networkmanager, but currently, it's a bug, not a product.

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carrouf

Member

Registered: 2007-01-06

Posts: 34

Re: NetworkManager/KNetworkManager VS Arch's network profiles

Thanks for your answer. Things are now clearer for me.

Let's hope wireless network handling will get better with KDE4 release ....

Until then I think I'll stick with Arch's profiles. But still remains the bug with essids and white spaces. I'd like to report it : who do you think I should contact for this ?

mutlu_inek

Member

From: all over the place

Registered: 2006-11-18

Posts: 683

Re: NetworkManager/KNetworkManager VS Arch's network profiles

NetworkManager:
  After testing with two laptop computers (Compal CL56 and Asus G1), this method could be the best but is highly bugged. Sometimes the KnetworkManager icon does not show in the systray : you have to kill the app and restart it, then select the appropriate network profile. Unaccpetable. Sometimes KNetworkManager wants to connect for minutes to my wired network card while it is not plugged. At system shutdown, networkmanager outputs a ton of errors and warning message.
Does someone have a successful experience with NetWorkManager and KDE ? I'd be really interested.

I agree that NetworkManager still has some serious issues. But so far I have only been happy about having it, for it is the only gui that actually works (well, for me) when connecting to unknown networks on the fly. I have errors when shutting down as you report, but I have no issues with KDE's systray applet. It loads well and (usually) connects well.

However, better even wireless scripts would be wonderful.