Wireless in 9.10

[Reinhold Rumberger]

On Sunday 06 December 2009, Nigel Ridley wrote:
> Reinhold Rumberger wrote:
> > I haven't been able to use NM since I need more than one network
> > interface to be active at a time (i.e. both ethernet and
> > wireless). Since I've always used /etc/network/interfaces, this
> > has never really bothered me...
> 
> Could you give a working example of your /etc/network/interfaces?
> We have ethernet and two wireless routers, both DHCP auto and
>  'unprotected'/open.

Sure:
<sample>
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
address 127.0.0.1
netmask 255.0.0.0

iface eth0 inet dhcp

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid infvpn
pre-up iwconfig wlan0 rate 54M

auto wlan0
</sample>

The "lo" interface is obviously the loopback device. "eth0" is an 
ethernet (wired) interface. "wlan0" is the wireless interface. The 
pre-up statement makes sure that the wireless interface is in its 
highest supported speed mode and may be omitted. "infvpn" is the 
name/(E)SSID of the wireless network. If your routers both have the 
same SSID, just replace "infvpn" with your SSID and you should be 
fine.
This configuration will not activate the eth0 interface since I don't 
need it in that environment.
Don't forget to restart NM and networking after altering your 
/etc/network/interfaces (preferably by running "stop network-manager; 
/etc/init.d/networking restart; start network-manager" as root).

See "man interfaces" for further info.

> > The Idea behind NM also has the problem that one needs to log in
> > before a network connection can be established (unless something
> > drastically changed). This is a problem on my Desktop, which I
> > tend to start and afterwards use/manage remotely...
> 
> This is a pain in the proverbial -- I have a couple of widgets
>  that require internet access and 'time out' because
>  KNetWorkManager takes a while to actually connect. OTOH, Wicd
>  would connect before log in -- much better!

IMHO, in a fixed setting (e.g. Desktop), /etc/network/interfaces 
works best.

  --Reinhold