Re: [gentoo-user] NetworkManager OK? kNetworkManager broken? Wireless setup very confusing...

[Bill Kenworthy]

Gentoo networking is a bit on the wild side - it doesnt seem to work
nicely with third party tools without a lot of work.

My fix was to manually configure each location (and a couple of general
ones such as wifi hotspot, and basic wired dhcp) as I came across them
and copy the resulting config files to separate directories.  Then when
I need to return to a location I just copy the matching set of files
back and restart services.  Allows a "profile" based approach based on
site - some need different screen resolutions, apache or bind running,
external projector, firewall settings for VoIP or not and so on - all
able to be scripted.

Very flexible as I control it with a shell script linked to a gtkdialog
for site selection one click to open dialog, second click selects site.
I have decided not to automate site selection (such as netwwork
detection on cable plugin) as I wanted control :)

So my reccomendation is forget networkmanager (particularly that heap
of !#$#%$@) and the like and roll your own.

BillK



On Thu, 2010-09-30 at 18:37 -0600, Darren Kirby wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Getting very frustrated here. Trying to put the finishing touches on a
> new laptop install. I have verified using the CLI that both wired and
> wireless networking works fine when I configure manually. As with most
> laptops, I would imagine, I will be switching locations often, and
> switching between several different networks both wired and wireless.
> I thought the thing to do would be to install a slick gui to take care
> of this. To that end I installed NetworkManager, and KNetworkManager
> as a front-end as I use a KDE desktop. As far as I can tell Network
> Manager is working fine, I followed the instructions for setup from
> the wiki here[0] and here[1], and it does seem to setup a wired
> connection on eth0 just fine. However, I am getting an error upon
> trying to start Knetworkmanager:
>
> " KNetworkManager can not start because the installation is misconfigured.
>  System DBUS policy does not allow it to provide user settings.
>  contact your system administrator or distribution.
>  KNetworkManager will not start automatically in future."
>
> Not sure why, as per the wiki I added:
>
> <policy group="plugdev">
>     <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.NetworkManager"/>
>
>     <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.NetworkManager"
>            send_interface="org.freedesktop.NetworkManager"/>
> </policy>
>
> to /etc/dbus-1/system.d/NetworkManager.conf, and added my user to
> plugdev group. Is there something else I'm missing? I'm unsure how to
> further troubleshoot. I also tried the NetworkManager plasmoid for
> kde, but that is just bombing with a bunch off error messages I can't
> read in the 'connections' window.
>
> I am wondering if I should just uninstall KNetworkManager, and try
> nm-applet? Will that even work on a KDE desktop? Will it require
> installing boatloads of gnome crap I don't want? Should I chuck the
> whole works and use Wicd?
>
> At this point I'd be happy with pretty much any solution that just
> works, I've wasted the better half of the day on this and I'm starting
> to think I should just stick to using the CLI...this frustration just
> isn't worth it.
>
> Do any of you folks out there have an easy, simple solution to
> configuring wireless that you like? I'm open to any ideas.
>
> [0] http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/NetworkManager
> [1] http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/KNetworkManager
> --
> Support the mob or mysteriously disappear...
> I'm on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/badcomputer/
>