Wireless/network connection GUIs

[debian]

Paul Tansom wrote:
> ** chombee <chombee at nerdshack.com> [2007-10-02 14:01]:
>   
>> Okay, so the new network-manager we have in Ubuntu now is great, but it
>> doesn't work with every wireless card. I do lots of Ubuntu installs for
>> people new to computers or moving from Windows, and fairly often their
>> wireless card doesn't work with network-manager. So I leave them with
>> the old System->Administration->Network, which is really not very good,
>> it's confusing and difficult and slow and infuriating.
>>
>> There are lots of applications out there that make connecting to
>> networks quicker and easier. Does Xubuntu have a network manager it
>> uses? What about Kubuntu? Does anyone have any other recommendations?
>>
>> What I'm looking for is something that will:
>>
>> * Manage wireless connections in a quick and easy way like
>> network-manager
>> * Ideally manage wired connections too
>> * Work with all network cards that work at all with Ubuntu, or at least
>> work with more than network-manager does.
>>     
> <<snip>>
> ** end quote [chombee]
>
> Arguably not an ideal suggestion since it isn't currently in any of the
> Ubuntu repositories, but I'm just taking a look at Wicd [1]. There is a
> Ubuntu repository that you can manually add though, which helps.
>
> I'm currently struggling to get one, or preferably all four, of my
> wireless cards working with Ubuntu. I have one that appears to be
> working fine bar the fact that I need to use wpa and not wep. If you
> want to use a wireless card in Linux, and you want to use it with a
> native driver, and you want to use wpa, you seem to have a very limited
> choice unfortunately.
>
> My choice of cards was made for me by virtue of having them already or
> getting them bundled with other items, and being a bit of a techy I am
> determined to get them working and document it, rather than go out and
> buy a new card - although I may end up having to do that as well (and
> I'll justify it by getting a mini pci one to fit internally to the
> laptop and run the arial round the screen!).
>
> Oh, as for wicd, it has the advantage for me that it has no Gnome
> dependencies and I'm trying to get back to my xfce desktop after
> switching to Ubuntu. It does seem a little rough around the edges
> though, most obviously in terms of reliability of the icon displayed in
> the tray - although that may be related to my card not working yet!
>
> As an aside, can anyone point to some decent documentation on the Prism54
> driver? The website is clear as mud and I'm having problems working out whether
> it actually supports wpa, which of the variants I should be using with my card
> [2], whether I need the custom firmware, how I flash my card with the custom
> firmware (if needed) and whether the custom firmware still allows the card to
> be used with Windows - amongst other things!
>
> [1] http://wicd.sourceforge.net/
>
> [2]
> paul at dusky:~$ lspci
> <<snip>>
> 03:00.0 Network controller: 3Com Corporation 3com 3CRWE154G72 [Office
> Connect Wireless LAN Adapter] (rev 01)
>
> paul at dusky:~$ sudo lspci -vn -s 03:00.0
> Password:
> 03:00.0 0280: 10b7:6001 (rev 01)
>         Subsystem: 10b7:600
>         Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
>         Memory at 28000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
>         Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1
>
>   
 i know kubuntu uses wlassistant, but i perfer the network-manager (a 
bit more stable with my wireless)

--cj