GUI Wireless Tools

[Ed Fletcher]

Ed Fletcher wrote:
> 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

Well, NetworkManager works a treat.  I'm in the coffee shop (free 
wireless) and it picked up five different signals.  Selected the one I 
wanted and it made the connection.

Only thing different from yesterday is that NetworkManager stayed 
running this time.  At home, it shut itself down after making the 
connection.  So if I wanted to switch networks, I could do it without 
having to log out and log back in again.  Sweet!

This is truly painless.

Ed
-- 
Ed Fletcher
ed at fletcher.ca

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