better system-config-network for fc5? (wireless)

nkoplm · #1 15th February 2006, 08:12 AM

i love fedora, but there is one thing that urks me. the only big gripe i have with fedora is the wireless manager. to be clear, i am not talking about driver support or compatibility issues. What i do not like is how there is no way to detect all the wireless connections in range.

in windows for instance, (or in ubuntu i saw it once.), when you open the wireless manager, you can scan for avalible networks. then it lists them all saying unsecured network or WEP secured network, there is invariably one called default, or linksys and usually a few others.

I hope you guys know what i am talking about. this way you can see what your connection options are instead of having to know what networks are in range, and what their ssids are ahead of time.

does anyone know if there are any effors currently underway to include something like this?

RahulSundaram · #2 15th February 2006, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nkoplm

i love fedora, but there is one thing that urks me. the only big gripe i have with fedora is the wireless manager. to be clear, i am not talking about driver support or compatibility issues. What i do not like is how there is no way to detect all the wireless connections in range.

in windows for instance, (or in ubuntu i saw it once.), when you open the wireless manager, you can scan for avalible networks. then it lists them all saying unsecured network or WEP secured network, there is invariably one called default, or linksys and usually a few others.

I hope you guys know what i am talking about. this way you can see what your connection options are instead of having to know what networks are in range, and what their ssids are ahead of time.

does anyone know if there are any effors currently underway to include something like this?

We are phasing out other tools with the new Network Manager largely written and maintained by Red Hat. Refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Tools/NetworkManager

drunkahol · #3 15th February 2006, 02:38 PM

If Network Manager is the way forward, then Network Manager needs some work.

We *should* be able to browse available wireless networks.

We *should" be able to save multiple configurations for different networks

I can understand Red Hat doing a very corporate config screen, but Fedora is very much more a user desktop requiring more flexibility.

Cheers

Duncan

RahulSundaram · #4 15th February 2006, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drunkahol

If Network Manager is the way forward, then Network Manager needs some work.

We *should* be able to browse available wireless networks.

We *should" be able to save multiple configurations for different networks

I can understand Red Hat doing a very corporate config screen, but Fedora is very much more a user desktop requiring more flexibility.

Cheers

Duncan

Browsing available networks is already supported. Profile management probably requires more work. It is not enabled by default yet in Fedora precisely because it requires more work. However you can help that filing bugs and requests enhancements in http://bugzilla.gnome.org or http://bugzilla.redhat.com and taking part in the discussions in the network manager list.

There is nothing "corporate" about network manager. It was designed right from the start to be portable and usable across laptops, desktops and even servers in the future.

Grey · #5 1st April 2006, 02:36 PM

RahulSundaram, you noted that "Browsing available networks is already supported." is it possable for you to show us how this is done? I for one, am fairly new to linux, and would definately like to see how to go about this...

RahulSundaram · #6 1st April 2006, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grey

RahulSundaram, you noted that "Browsing available networks is already supported." is it possable for you to show us how this is done? I for one, am fairly new to linux, and would definately like to see how to go about this...

If you have installed Network manager applet (called nm-applet and automatically enabled in FC5), just right clicking on the applet shows the available networks as seen in http://www.gnome.org/projects/NetworkManager/

Instructions available at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Tools/NetworkManager

Grey · #7 1st April 2006, 02:44 PM

My thanks for the speedy reply, it would seem then, that something else is causing troubles for me. (most likely a driver issue I fear)

RahulSundaram · #8 1st April 2006, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grey

My thanks for the speedy reply, it would seem then, that something else is causing troubles for me. (most likely a driver issue I fear)

It is likely. Many of the so called network manager issues are just flaky drivers in the kernel that gets exposed by this tool. You might want to file a bug in http://bugzilla.redhat.com to see if we can workaround any specific hardware or driver issues just in case it is one.

shartrec · #9 2nd April 2006, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RahulSundaram

It is likely. Many of the so called network manager issues are just flaky drivers in the kernel that gets exposed by this tool. You might want to file a bug in http://bugzilla.redhat.com to see if we can workaround any specific hardware or driver issues just in case it is one.

Network manager may be the future, but it has a long way to go. As soon as I start it on my laptop my network just goes down and stays that way. There seems to be no documentation on either the fedora or gnome-network-manager sites, so it is pretty hard to see what is wrong. Simple questions like, "what config files does it use?" would be a start.

And system-config-network is broken in FC5 if you want wireless and wep. To bring up a wireless network in encrypted mode ifup-wireless needs entries like:
SECURITYMODE=restricted
KEY1=abababababab
in ifcfg-ethx, but system-config-network doesn't write these and doesn't seem to use them either.

My system works perfectly, but only if I add the above entries to ifcfg-xxx and use ifup and ifdown to control the network.

BTW I have an IBM Thinkpad A21e with DLink DWL 650 pcmcia card which uses the orinoco driver.

RahulSundaram · #10 3rd April 2006, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shartrec

Network manager may be the future, but it has a long way to go. As soon as I start it on my laptop my network just goes down and stays that way. There seems to be no documentation on either the fedora or gnome-network-manager sites, so it is pretty hard to see what is wrong. Simple questions like, "what config files does it use?" would be a start.

And system-config-network is broken in FC5 if you want wireless and wep. To bring up a wireless network in encrypted mode ifup-wireless needs entries like:
SECURITYMODE=restricted
KEY1=abababababab
in ifcfg-ethx, but system-config-network doesn't write these and doesn't seem to use them either.

My system works perfectly, but only if I add the above entries to ifcfg-xxx and use ifup and ifdown to control the network.

BTW I have an IBM Thinkpad A21e with DLink DWL 650 pcmcia card which uses the orinoco driver.

If you dont find documents, ask questions and help write them. It's one method to contribute. It is not enabled by default because its not ready to be a generic default tool yet. Someone needs to do the job right and if you find bugs, file them in http://bugzilla.redhat.com.