I hate to say this, but I am confused about how to configure wireless on
my Wheezy laptop system.

I originally installed Wheezy from a weekly net install, which means that
I had to add components I wanted. At one point I had the wireless working
through trial and error configuring the /etc/network/interfaces file for
my home wireless.

But now currently I am out-of-town with my laptop, so I want to setup
Gnome to use an applet which will automatically scan available wireless
networks that I can choose from, and prompt me for the security key when
one is selected (if needed). This is the normal setup I see on other
people's laptops, and is the default when I boot from a Knoppix cd, for
instance.

But I can't seem to figure out which software packages I need to do this.
I am downloading the deb packages on a different computer then transfering
them via USB flashdrive to my laptop, then using dpkg -i to install them.
Of course I have had to get all the package dependencies, which takes
time. So far I have installed wireless-tools, network-manager,
wpasupplicant, network-manager-gnome, and a bunch of lib dependiencies.
But I don't have an network-manager-applet. When I look online for an
applet I only find the source, not a binary deb package.

I have read the wiki page on network-manager and the
/usr/share/doc/wireless-tools/README.Debian, but they confuse me and seem
to be for hard coding a particular wireless connection- not what I want.

Can someone help explain to me how to do this and/or what I am doing wrong?

Thanks,
Keith


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On Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:02:37 -0700, keitho wrote:

> I hate to say this, but I am confused about how to configure wireless on
> my Wheezy laptop system.

(...)

> But I can't seem to figure out which software packages I need to do
> this. I am downloading the deb packages on a different computer then
> transfering them via USB flashdrive to my laptop, then using dpkg -i to
> install them. Of course I have had to get all the package dependencies,
> which takes time. So far I have installed wireless-tools,
> network-manager, wpasupplicant, network-manager-gnome, and a bunch of
> lib dependiencies. But I don't have an network-manager-applet. When I
> look online for an applet I only find the source, not a binary deb
> package.

(...)

That's strange.

If you installed wheezy and selected "desktop" and "laptop tools"
templates, network manager (as well as the required files, like the
applet) should have been installed automatically by default :-?

BTW, the package which contains the applet is "network-manager-gnome"
which you seem to have installed so you should be able to launch it by
running "nm-applet --sm-disable".

Greetings,

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Camaleón


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Thank you for replying.

It turns out that I did have the applet, but still could not connect. I
finally figured out that the problem was due to my misunderstanding the
difference between "managed" and "not managed"... I had inadvertently left
some configuration info in my /etc/network/interfaces file that was
interfering with the network-manager. After I removed the lines from the
interfaces file everything now works as expected.

Thank you again, you have been very helpful to me, and others on the
debian-users list, more than once.

I would also like to know how I can configure a console laptop (one with
no gui- CLI only) to access wireless in the same manner- automatic
detection of available wireless networks and a way to enter a key when
necessary. Can someone point me to a tutorial that would help me?

Keith Ostertag



> On Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:02:37 -0700, keitho wrote:
>
>> I hate to say this, but I am confused about how to configure wireless on
>> my Wheezy laptop system.
>
> (...)
>
>> But I can't seem to figure out which software packages I need to do
>> this. I am downloading the deb packages on a different computer then
>> transfering them via USB flashdrive to my laptop, then using dpkg -i to
>> install them. Of course I have had to get all the package dependencies,
>> which takes time. So far I have installed wireless-tools,
>> network-manager, wpasupplicant, network-manager-gnome, and a bunch of
>> lib dependiencies. But I don't have an network-manager-applet. When I
>> look online for an applet I only find the source, not a binary deb
>> package.
>
> (...)
>
> That's strange.
>
> If you installed wheezy and selected "desktop" and "laptop tools"
> templates, network manager (as well as the required files, like the
> applet) should have been installed automatically by default :-?
>
> BTW, the package which contains the applet is "network-manager-gnome"
> which you seem to have installed so you should be able to launch it by
> running "nm-applet --sm-disable".
>
> Greetings,
>
> --
> Camaleón
>



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On Tue 04 Oct 2011 at 12:32:29 -0700, keitho@strucktower.com wrote:

> I would also like to know how I can configure a console laptop (one with
> no gui- CLI only) to access wireless in the same manner- automatic
> detection of available wireless networks and a way to enter a key when
> necessary. Can someone point me to a tutorial that would help me?

How attractive does cnetworkmanager look to you?


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On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:32:29 -0700, keitho wrote:

>> On Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:02:37 -0700, keitho wrote:

(...)

>> BTW, the package which contains the applet is "network-manager-gnome"
>> which you seem to have installed so you should be able to launch it by
>> running "nm-applet --sm-disable".

> Thank you for replying.
>
> It turns out that I did have the applet, but still could not connect. I
> finally figured out that the problem was due to my misunderstanding the
> difference between "managed" and "not managed"... I had inadvertently
> left some configuration info in my /etc/network/interfaces file that was
> interfering with the network-manager. After I removed the lines from the
> interfaces file everything now works as expected.

Great! :-)

> Thank you again, you have been very helpful to me, and others on the
> debian-users list, more than once.

You're welcome.

> I would also like to know how I can configure a console laptop (one with
> no gui- CLI only) to access wireless in the same manner- automatic
> detection of available wireless networks and a way to enter a key when
> necessary. Can someone point me to a tutorial that would help me?

Mmm, I think network manager can be also used from command line
("nmcli"), but I'm not sure about its full capabilities :-?

(...)

Look, this article may help, I think it points to almost all of the
possibilities:

***
Configure wireless network from the command line
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/21541/configure-wireless-network-from-the-command-line
***

Another option could be avoiding NM to manage the wifi interface and manually
set the required settings by means of "/etc/network/interfaces" in join with
wpa_supplicant, but this method seems annoying for a "road warrior"
configuration :-):

http://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse

Greetings,

--
Camaleón


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On Ma, 04 oct 11, 12:32:29, keitho@strucktower.com wrote:
>
> I would also like to know how I can configure a console laptop (one with
> no gui- CLI only) to access wireless in the same manner- automatic
> detection of available wireless networks and a way to enter a key when
> necessary. Can someone point me to a tutorial that would help me?

wicd-curses is far superior to any NM alternatives.

Regards,
Andrei
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