Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

jlacroix · 2010-01-28 19:38:14

Hello again everyone. I seem to be full of issues today. Anyway, I'm a KDE guy and I've been using WICD to manage my network connections since around the time that KDE 4.x premiered, because as far as I know KDE does not have a viable network manager.

WICD works great, it connects before I even finish logging in, it connects to my networks without me having to interact at all, until now. Now, it's just acting strange, and I didn't change anything except whatever is changed during the normal updating of packages.

It started off not connecting to wired connections at all and only wireless at home. If I plugged in a network cable, it would try and try and try and then tell me that it couldn't get an IP address. Sometimes after restarting it would work but not every time. After a few more days, it started to connect to wireless connections only 50% of the time. A reboot would usually clear it up.

Now, as of today, it won't connect to anything. I took it to work as I usually do so I can use it in the lunch room (where there are three wireless AP's in range) and it wouldn't connect at all, and I tried rebooting five times. One of my coworkers had no problem connecting to the same wireless AP on her laptop that I could not connect to.

I've never known WICD to be problematic like this. I didn't change anything and I don't think it's been updated recently.

If there is a network manager for KDE that works more reliably, I'm open to suggestions. I prefer WICD because it (used to) worked so well. At the very least, I prefer having some sort of wireless manager. The one that shipped with Kubuntu in 9.04 is completely terrible so whatever that is I don't know if I want that unless it got drastically improved.

lagagnon · 2010-01-28 19:41:08

Maybe just delete your ~/.wicd config file/dir and start over again?

jlacroix · 2010-01-28 19:43:37

lagagnon wrote:

Maybe just delete your ~/.wicd config file/dir and start over again?

I tried that. The strange thing is that when I reboot it still remembers all of my networks and passwords, I wonder how it can be remembering all of that when I deleted the .wicd folder? I even tried deleting .wicd from a tty without logging in and it STILL preserves all the settings!

cesura · 2010-01-28 20:28:37

For wireless, I just use a script, which isn't much of a problem if you keep your computer on alot.

#!/bin/bash
modprobe ath5k
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid "access point" key 123456789
dhcpcd wlan0

NOTE: replace the ath5k with what driver you use. chmod +x it and just manually run it when you turn your computer on

jlacroix · 2010-01-28 20:36:15

itsbrad212 wrote:

For wireless, I just use a script, which isn't much of a problem if you keep your computer on alot.
#!/bin/bash
modprobe ath5k
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid "access point" key 123456789
dhcpcd wlan0
NOTE: replace the ath5k with what driver you use. chmod +x it and just manually run it when you turn your computer on

Thanks. While that's good and all, I really want WICD to work or to find a GUI network manager for KDE that is at least mostly as capable.

simongmzlj · 2010-01-28 20:46:37

Have you tried clearing /etc/wicd? If your running wicd as a system daemon, it doesn't store settings in .wicd

jlacroix · 2010-01-28 20:55:41

simongmzlj wrote:

Have you tried clearing /etc/wicd? If your running wicd as a system daemon, it doesn't store settings in .wicd

I haven't tried that. Thank you! I will try that when I use my laptop next, which will be this evening.

mcmillan · 2010-01-28 21:22:42

There are also settings in /var/lib/wicd/ so you might also want to think about moving those to see if it fixes anything.

davibrosk · 2010-01-29 01:13:30

I also have this exact same problem. I can connect via command line fine, but wicd cant connect to any network. I've been using wicd since the kde4 premiere also, and the problem only came up in the last few days or so.

masterLoki · 2010-01-29 01:51:47

Have you tried netcfg?
You can manage all your network connections with the shell or GUI or auto-detect network at boot.
Check http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Netcfg and http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Netcfg#GUI

jlacroix · 2010-01-29 03:39:10

I deleted everything in /etc/wicd and then reinstalled wicd, and now wireless connections work fine, but it still refuses to connect to a wired connection.

I love wicd and would like to stick with it. However, will KDE 4.4 come with a decent QT4 based system tray network manager? Does anyone know?

jowilkin · 2010-01-29 03:51:29

I don't use KDE often, but what about standard networkmanager? I have no problems with it on GNOME, the kde frontend is knetworkmanger. The kde plasmoid version is in extra right now, it's called kdeplasma-applets-networkmanager. The older knetworkmanger package is available on the AUR.

I don't know if either of these is the one that you refer to that came with kubuntu, but networkmanager has matured a lot recently.

Last edited by jowilkin (2010-01-29 03:52:06)

mcsaba77 · 2010-01-29 04:17:37

Unfortunately wicd has lots of issues with latest kernel. I've been following and posting in these two threads:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 33#p695433
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 11#p694311

As for now, I switched to networkmanager. I use the default nm-applet, it works well, but I agree, it's not nearly as neat as wicd, and the icon is an eyesore Maybe a kernel/wicd update in the future will solve these issues, but as of now, too many people (on various hardware) seem to have issues with wicd + kernel 2.32.x.

EDIT>

Knetworkmanager unfortunately depends on kde3, while the plasmoid is completely broken at the moment. Hopefully they'll get it working (or they might have some sort of solution) in 4.4 release...

Last edited by mcsaba77 (2010-01-29 04:19:11)

supper1213 · 2010-01-29 06:18:33

mcsaba77 wrote:

Unfortunately wicd has lots of issues with latest kernel. I've been following and posting in these two threads:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 33#p695433
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 11#p694311
As for now, I switched to networkmanager. I use the default nm-applet, it works well, but I agree, it's not nearly as neat as wicd, and the icon is an eyesore Maybe a kernel/wicd update in the future will solve these issues, but as of now, too many people (on various hardware) seem to have issues with wicd + kernel 2.32.x.
EDIT>
Knetworkmanager unfortunately depends on kde3, while the plasmoid is completely broken at the moment. Hopefully they'll get it working (or they might have some sort of solution) in 4.4 release...

I also have this issue, really thank you for your threads.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-01-28 19:38:14

Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#2 2010-01-28 19:41:08

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#3 2010-01-28 19:43:37

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#4 2010-01-28 20:28:37

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#5 2010-01-28 20:36:15

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#6 2010-01-28 20:46:37

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#7 2010-01-28 20:55:41

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#8 2010-01-28 21:22:42

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#9 2010-01-29 01:13:30

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#10 2010-01-29 01:51:47

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#11 2010-01-29 03:39:10

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#12 2010-01-29 03:51:29

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#13 2010-01-29 04:17:37

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

#14 2010-01-29 06:18:33

Re: Need Suggestions For Network Manager/WICD

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