LXDE and the problem with NetworkManager

[Andrzej Orkan]

I'm use Fluxbox in my everyday work. With the recent installation of Fedora12 (from the Gnome LiveCD) i decided to replace GDM with LXDM. I did it by means of editing /etc/X11/prefdm file:

...
quit_arg=
preferred=
if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/desktop ]; then
    . /etc/sysconfig/desktop
    if [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = GNOME ]; then
        preferred=/usr/sbin/gdm
        quit_arg="--retain-splash"
    elif [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = KDE ]; then
        preferred=/usr/bin/kdm
    elif [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = WDM ]; then
        preferred=/usr/bin/wdm
    elif [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = XDM ]; then
            preferred=/usr/bin/xdm
        elif [ -n "$DISPLAYMANAGER" ]; then
        preferred=$DISPLAYMANAGER
    else
        quit_arg="--retain-splash"
    fi
else
    quit_arg="--retain-splash"
fi

preferred=/usr/bin/lxdm
...

after reboot I have some issues with permissions, for example NetworkManager won't start:

$ nm-applet

** (nm-applet:1459): WARNING **: <WARN>  request_name(): Could not acquire the NetworkManagerUserSettings service.
  Error: (9) Connection ":1.24" is not allowed to own the service "org.freedesktop.NetworkManagerUserSettings" due to security policies in the configuration file

also "reboot" command won't work anymore without "sudo"

I tried to look for it in forums, found out that this is "dirty little secret of Gnome - it's not modular" and that GDM is responsible for far more than just login management.

Anyone had same experiences or has proper knowledge to help me with this, please?

[scottro]

I also use fluxbox. However, I don't use network manager. Is not using NetworkManager, but using the network service instead, a possible solution?

Like Windows and Mac, Fedora and Ubuntu, as well, as no doubt, many other desktop oriented distributions, tie many things heavily to the graphic interface. As I'm not a NetworkManager fan, I've never really looked into it, I just use the network service instead.

I don't know if you consider that an option or not.

[Andrzej Orkan]

network service is an option

but here the problem is - I believe - not in NetworkManager, but in permissions and access to certain parts of system after login, GDM seems to have it configured, LXDM - not

[scottro]

I'm not sure (whether it's a permissions problem--though it wouldn't surprise me if the permissions were with NM itself)

In any case, you could try enabling network and disabling NM with chkconfig

chkconfig NetworkManager off
chkconfig network on

(Frankly, I prefer to reboot after that if it's an option, because NM seems to be involved in all sorts of things.)
Then, you can use system-network-config to set up your card whether for DHCP or static. (Or system-network-config-tui).

After that, try service network restart and all will, hopefully, be good. You will also, I imagine, have to set it to come up on boot. (I actually do most of this manually, so not sure of the exact steps.) You will have to make these changes as root or with root privilege.

For what it's worth, this works for me.

[Andrzej Orkan]

I'll give it a try, but I think it will only solve my network problem, and there are few more there waiting.
I can also try those new re-spins of LXDE live CDs for F12, thay must've solved it somehow there.
Thanks.

[scottro]

Ah, my bad, I didn't realize you were using the older version of LXDE. As you've probably noticed, there were some problems. So yes, that would be the first step, try the new spin.