internet connection on Kubuntu Hardy

[Emanoil Kotsev]

--- On Mon, 10/13/08, Thorny <thorntreehome at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Thorny <thorntreehome at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: internet connection on Kubuntu Hardy
> To: kubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> Date: Monday, October 13, 2008, 4:42 PM
> On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:51:29 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> 
> > I have set up a laptop for my granddaughter with
> Kubuntu Hardy installed. 
> > It is fully updated.
> > 
> > The needs are:
> > 
> > A UK English base for most programs and the desktop. 
> So a UK English
> > installation.
> > 
> > Japanese input from the keyboard.
> > 
> > Wireless connection using DHCP.
> > 
> > The first two I have, tho' the second took a long
> while.

Hello, again sharing experience and erading just this one mail - I also had a trouble with the network configuration - not quite the same like you -  until I found that dbus is triggering the KDE networkmanager. I then fixed the scripts in /etc/dbus-1/

Someone suggested to leave only the lo interface in the /etc/network/interfaces and everything worked but not  for me because I have to have the network configured before I log in, because my root partition is on nfs.

So if you want to use ifconfig and so on there should be something in the file telling ifconfig about your interface. In fact under debian I had following

# The primary network interface
auto eth1
allow-hotplug eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

and it was working much better than now in terms that've been seeing the network configuration under kde ... now I see that's connected (after I added hotplug into the dbus files, but don't see IP etc.

> > 
> > The internet connection is proving a nightmare.  I can
> find no way of
> > making the settings endure, and no way of setting up
> DHCP at all.
> > 
> > Both ethernet and the wireless card will work for one
> session, and one
> > session only, if I put static settings in, but
> although I am told that the
> > settings have been saved, they clearly have not.
> > 
> > I have tried installing and uninstalling
> knetworkmanager.  It seems to
> > make not a blind bit of difference.
> > 
> > While it was uninstalled I tried editing
> /etc/network/interfaces but
> > Kubuntu seems just to ignore it.  I have reinstalled
> knetworkmanager
> > (which seems to be only an applet anyway, that links
> to the network
> > settings in the control panel), renamed
> /etc/network/interfaces and left
> > the network manager to reinstate it.  Still the
> settings do not endure
> > past a restart and still DHCP simply doesn't work.
> > 
> > Can anyone offer any advice?  Or recommend another
> distro that would
> > fulfill the criteria?  She needs this laptop and I
> have been trying to get
> > it going and fulfilling the criteria since the middle
> of August.  She is
> > beginning, with some justification, to ask why I
> don't just use Windows.
> > 
> > TIA
> > Lisi
> 
> I have no experience with networkmanager but I have seen it
> written
> several places as "network mangler" by people who
> have had frustrations
> with it. 
> 
> To make sure you are really back to a place where manual
> config could work
> perhaps it is necessary to go lower level than the K
> frontend. You could
> try purging networkmanager, it's the deamon that tries
> to keep a
> connection always up and which has caused lots of people
> difficulties,
> since Debian Etch if I remember correctly.

Did you work on Etch - I spent years, and should disagree with you.

> 
> With it purged, you should be able to manually configure
> your ethernet
> interface in /etc/network/interfaces with auto; inet; dhcp
> and when you
> restart networking it should ask the router's DHCP
> server for an IP
> address. ...or at a terminal (with sudo if appropriate on
> your system)
> ifconfig (interface) down followed by ifconfig (interface)
> up. That should
> read the manual configuration ...or, at least, drop some
> error message.
> 

I would recommend following

1) do you want network be configured before you login or not, by what you are saying I conclude you don't care, so remove everyhting from /etc/network/interfaces except your lo device config

cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
address 127.0.0.1
netmask 255.0.0.0


2) there is a problem with the dbus config I suppose but try restarting dbus instead networiking (configure the interface over the kontrol center to use dhcp)

sudo /etc/init.d/dbus restart

or just the network part

sudo /etc/dbus-1/event.d/25NetworkManager restart

3) If 2 does not work check that you are member of the netdev and/or plugdev group - I would bet it's your problem

4) let us know if it helped

I've fixed this by writing and reading few postings and experimenting for a while

- wireless works
- network works

regards


PS.: this is another argument why developers should focus on making kubuntu more stable and user friendly and not look much nicer ... but as I said I don't want to discuss this topic over again