wifi annoyances

[scrollpane]

I have a thinkpad T61 and have had a lot of trouble getting wifi to work well in Kubuntu gutsy. It DOES work and once it connects, the speed is good and the connection is stable, but getting it set up is a hassle. Here are the problems I am seeing:

1) KNetworkManager says "No active device" and I have never been able to get it to work
2) I have KWifiManager installed and am able to get it to connect, but this requires opening it up after startup, going to Settings->Configuration Editor... and clicking the "activate" button on a configuration I have set up. Even though I have the "Load preset configuration on startup" checkbox checked, it doesn't connect at startup.
3) Once I click the Activate button, it can take up to 10 minutes to get an IP address. It finds the network and shows a strong connection, but DHCP seems to take forever. I have another thinkpad with XP and it connects to the same access point and gets an IP address in about 5 seconds, so I know that it isn't a problem with the access point.

Does anybody have any recommendation on how to troubleshoot the slow DHCP problem? How about getting it to connect at startup? I don't really care if the solution uses KNetworkManager, KwifiManager, or anything else that works, as long as I don't have wait so long to connect.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

--Scrollpane

[lingenfr]

Re: wifi annoyances

I suggest uninstalling knetworkmanager completely and don't reinstall it unless you read a lot of posts describing the recent work and improvements. Check out wicd instead, http://wicd.sourceforge.net/ . The first thing you should do is goto K>System Settings>Network and set up your interfaces there. You will need to hit the Administrator Mode button and enter your password. Then select the interface you want and hit the configure button. You will want to check the box to Activate at Startup and the Automatic checkboxes. That should take care of you.

[kbunt]

Re: wifi annoyances

But, it won't. I've done it. So have others. System Settings -> Network is no solution. Only WEP is available and the GUI shows the wireless in 'red' which means 'not working.' It indicates it's enabled, though. Enabled but not working.

[bootdoc]

Re: wifi annoyances

try wcid. you have nothing to lose.

[kbunt]

Re: wifi annoyances

I tried in Ubuntu once and it didn't work.

I have not found any instructions on how to install in KDE.

Developers do not care about wireless in Linux. All you read in 'networking' sections of forums is 'wireless is not working.' The Network Manager programs are awful. There are a few 'open source' hardware components that work out of the box at first. But, you cannot even configure these components because when the wireless that was initially working 'breaks', you can't configure because the program is so poorly set up. There are no options and the GUI applications are useless. Even to configure using the command line is a problem as you have to figure out which line to edit and where to do it.

As I see it, the developers are indifferent. There is no incentive or motivation to have anything 'work.' That is the only reason that I can see for why the programs work so horribly. When the entire world is going wireless, to have faulty network programs that are unusable is shocking.

[scrollpane]

Re: wifi annoyances

lingenfr, thanks for the advice. wcid works great. Connects automatically. However, I had difficulty getting getting the System Setting -> Network dialog to do anything useful. It kept reverting my settings no matter how many times I selected them and clicked Apply. I could sometimes get it to connect, but I couldn't keep the config from getting undone and it would never connect at startup, even though I had it set. wcid has solved this, and it connects at startup, so thanks for the tip. It seems like it should be included in the disto or else the Network config util needs to be fixed.

[bootdoc]

Re: wifi annoyances

I just installed wicd on dell inspiron after the wireless failed again. It worked great. You just have to add the repo to your sources.list, apt-get update, apt-get install wicd. It found my modem, I clicked connect and that was it.

[lingenfr]

Re: wifi annoyances

scrollpane, I agree with you. If the maintainers of knetworkmanager are not actively working on it and committed to making it work, it should be pulled from the distro and replaced with something that works. Unlike some (maybe many) others, I am not a fan of kwifimanager. It is not intuitive and for me, the usability is poor, unlike wicd.

As to the problem with System Settings > Network, I have never heard of that happening. If someone else knows what causes this, it would be good to know in case I ever see it in the wild.

lingenfr, thanks for the advice. wicd works great. Connects automatically. However, I had difficulty getting getting the System Setting -> Network dialog to do anything useful. It kept reverting my settings no matter how many times I selected them and clicked Apply. I could sometimes get it to connect, but I couldn't keep the config from getting undone and it would never connect at startup, even though I had it set. wcid has solved this, and it connects at startup, so thanks for the tip. It seems like it should be included in the disto or else the Network config util needs to be fixed.