GUI Wireless Tools

[Ed Fletcher]

Ed Fletcher wrote:
> niran wrote:
> 
>> Ed Fletcher Wrote:
>>
>>> Does anyone know of a Gnome interface to iwlist and iwconfig?
>>> Or is there something else I should be using?
>>
>>
>> I'm running Warty and I use Debian's netapplet package:
>> http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/netapplet
>>
>> If you're running Hoary, I think there's a package in universe that
>> depends on Gnome 2.9 libraries. Netapplet hasn't been all that great
>> for me though. When I tell it to use the wireless interface, it doesn't
>> get an ip address for it (or maybe it tries and fails). I run dhclient
>> on the interface afterwards to get everything set up.
>> Another option is NetworkManager:
>> http://people.ubuntu.com/~thom/network-manager/
>>
>> I haven't been able to try that one out because Warty's ndiswrapper
>> version doesn't report it's capabilities to HAL, so NetworkManager
>> ignores it. If you're not using ndiswrapper, it might be worth a shot.
>>
>>
>> The wiki page on this topic is here:
>> http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/NetworkMagic
>>
>> I'm not sure where Ubuntu is heading post-Hoary in regards to these two
>> projects, nor what the "shame about the implementation" is about in
>> regards to NetworkManager (it'd be nice to see that added to the wiki),
>> but for Hoary it looks like netapplet is the preferred solution.
> 
> 
> Hi Niran:
> 
> I'm running Warty without the ndiswrapper, so I'll have a look at 
> NetworkManager.  The SMC2835 works great at home but I've had lots of 
> problems in places like coffee shops where I don't know the channel nor 
> the BSSID.  I'll load NetworkManager tomorrow and give it a try on 
> Thursday.
> 
> Many thanks,
> Ed

Okay, I installed NetworkManager as per the web page quoted by Niran. 
No problems.  But it didn't activate when I logged out and logged back 
in again.  So I rebooted and got an error message during the boot 
sequence when NetworkManager was trying to load.  It complained about 
iw_scan.  Didn't have a clue what that was and I didn't have a command 
called iwscan on my system (hmmm . . . still don't).  So I googled 
iw_scan and found a page that mentioned it wasn't available in the older 
versions of wirelesstools.  So I fired up Synaptic, did a reload and 
there was an update available for wireless tools.  Did the update and 
rebooted again.  NetworkManager loaded correctly.  The icon (looks like 
a radar screen) appeared in the right corner in the top task bar.  It 
scanned and picked up my network and what I think is probably my 
neighbors network.  I selected mine and I was connected.  NetworkManager 
then shut itself down.  But the icon is still there with the rotating 
radar image going around.

Oddly enough, my wireless connection was enabled during boot and I saw 
that I was able to connect to the timeserver and update the time.  Once 
I  logged in and NetworkManager started, the wireless connection was 
down until I selected a network.  And since NetworkManager is no longer 
running, I have to log out and log back in again to switch networks. 
However, I don't see having to do that too often so I doubt that it will 
be a problem.

All in all, I must say that so far I'm very happy with NetworkManager. 
I'll try it in a coffee shop tomorrow to see how it performs in the real 
world and let everyone on the list know.

Thanks again Niran for the pointer.

BTW, I'm sending this from my laptop via wireless.

Ed
-- 
Ed Fletcher
ed at fletcher.ca

You live and learn.  At any rate, you live.
- Douglas Adams