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Wicked Wifi


raymac46

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Anybody here using WICD instead of the default Network Manager that comes with Gnome?

I have had a lot of problems with my Atheros wifi card lately (ath9k driver) and from what I have read it's a Network Manager bug. I get random disconnects and have to switch off wifi and switch it back on to reconnect.

I have installed WICD and removed Network Manager from my LM 18.1 system and we'll see how it goes. This is for a desktop which doesn't go anywhere and only uses wifi on one network because it's a PITA to get a cable down here from the router.

I sorta miss the old days when you had to configure wpa-supplicant manually and have a startup script for the dhcp daemon. I guess you can still do that with Arch Linux although it works through systemd I believe.

So far things are OK with WICD. I'll keep an eye on things for a few days.

Edited by raymac46
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securitybreach

Well its been a little while ago but wicd was my go to application for wireless connections before I started using netctl's wifi-menu. I'll sometimes use wicd on setups with a taskbar as it is easy to switch between various networks without having to open up a terminal.

 

For wired, I do sort of like you mentioned...running commands one after another but as a systemd service:

 

[unit]
Description=Wired Static IP Connectivity
Wants=network.target
Before=network.target

[service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
EnvironmentFile=/etc/conf.d/network
ExecStart=/sbin/ip link set dev enp4s0 up
ExecStart=/sbin/ip addr add 192.168.1.2/24 broadcast 192.168.1.255 dev enp4s0
ExecStart=/sbin/ip route add default via 192.168.1.1

ExecStop=/sbin/ip addr flush dev enp4s0
ExecStop=/sbin/ip link set dev enp3s0 down

[install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

 

I guess the same thing could be done for a wireless network too.

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I've been up with wicd for a while now and no problems. A bit early to conclude anything - we'll see how my grandson does with Web video games later on.

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V.T. Eric Layton

I used to use WICD, but when I started using a VPN, I had to go back to NetworkManager because WICD doesn't support OpenVPN. :(

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I also found my Atheros USB wifi to sometimes be unreliable using Network Manager, although it seems OK with my latest MX-16 install so I haven't purged it yet. Best results were when I configured it manually in /etc/network/interfaces. It's a desktop so only one AP to configure.

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I use WICD as a substitute for LXDE's Network Manager. NM works fine, but lxpanel is weird with a system tray applet, so it "disappears" on me sometimes. But I can keep an application there with no issues whatsoever. Plus WICD shows me wifi AND Ethernet info, so I end up replacing 2 icons with 1 that works better and is more versatile. +1 for WICD!

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Well it was a nice thought. I started getting some problems connecting with WICD and discovered that I still had a competing remnant of Network Manager (nm-applet) installed. If I remove that I also remove the Cinnamon desktop - Network Manager applet is a hard dependency of Cinnamon. So unless I want to go with Xfce or Mate I'll have to stick with Network Manager I guess.

Back on Network Manager for now. I'll see how it goes.

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securitybreach

Well it was a nice thought. I started getting some problems connecting with WICD and discovered that I still had a competing remnant of Network Manager (nm-applet) installed. If I remove that I also remove the Cinnamon desktop - Network Manager applet is a hard dependency of Cinnamon. So unless I want to go with Xfce or Mate I'll have to stick with Network Manager I guess.

Back on Network Manager for now. I'll see how it goes.

 

Why not simply disable the network manager service and stop nm-applet from loading at startup? You do not need to remove them to disable them.

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V.T. Eric Layton

Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon desktop.

 

Ah... OK. I was going to say that you could disable NetworkManager by changing permissions in /etc/init.d, but that ain't gonna' work in systemd. You'll have to see if Josh or Roger knows how to do that.

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V.T. Eric Layton

There you go. Even though I had experimented with systemd back when I was running Arch, I've forgotten all that spiffy stuff. I'll have to relearn it when Slackware goes to systemd. Fortunately, Pat V. has said that we will be tossing snowballs in Hades when that happens. ;)

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:oops: I think I may have found the solution to my wifi issues and it has nothing to do with WICD or Network Manager or Linux Mint.

I have a range extender gadget in the basement near my desktop. I set it up on a different LAN (say LAN1) to the router (LAN0) just to keep track of it. Network Manager was set to automatically connect to either network and "hunted" back and forth between them - dropping the connection as it did so.

I have set the wifi settings on the computer to automatically connect to LAN1 and NOT to LAN0. So far it's been very stable.

Often the problem exists between the chair and the monitor. :'(

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