Easily Manage Wireless Networks (GTKWifi)

[Mr Frosti]

One of the essential tasks of a laptop user is to be able to quickly and easily connect to different wireless access points. If anyone has used the "Network Monitor" program that starts with Ubuntu by default, you understand what a frustrating task this can be.

I came across a Project listed on the Ubuntu Forums named "GTKWifi", and figured I would share it with other people in need of a solid wifi app.

GTKWifi at a glace supports the following features:

1. One click connecting
2. Access Point scanning
3. Preferred network list
4. WEP key memory
5. Fast and easy interface

The project page can be found here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=34645&page=1

To install GTKWifi follow these instructions:

1) Open up a terminal by clicking "Applications" -> "Accessories" -> "Terminal"

2) Copy the code in the code boxes, and paste it into the terminal: (Updated to 1.09, thanks Moebius)

wget http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/gtkwifi/gtkwifi-1.09.deb

This downloads the file to your computer

sudo dpkg -i gtkwifi-1.09.deb

This will begin to install the file. You will be prompted for the administrator password. This will be your password.

Once the installation is complete, right click on one of the Gnome panels, at either the top or the bottom of the screen. Click on "Add to Panel". At the very bottom of the list, under "Utility" you will see the "Wireless Connection Manager" application. Select this and click "Add"

You have now installed this application to your panel. To start it, click on it, and select the wireless access point, if any, that you wish to connect to.

That was an easy one. Thanks goes to Brian Cairns.

[GQed76]

Should you uninstall network manager?

[Kieffer87]

When I used this my internet would connect, disconnect, etc. forever. I would have to use the manager to get connected and then once I had a signal in the network manager close the gtkwifi and all was fine. Any ideas for this?

[Nate53085]

Originally Posted by GQed76 Should you uninstall network manager?

No you shouldn't.

[maxdevis]

how do i uninstall this?
it totally ****** up my internet/networkconnection.

i even can't delete it from my Gnome-panel.

[kaamos]

sudo apt-get remove gtkwifi

[Moebius]

GTKWifi 1.09 has been released for quite some time (September 2005), so you could probably update this thread.

GTKWifi 1.09

[Nano]

Ok, cool, but still I don't understand what's different and/or better than the default network manager.

[namit]

i try to run gtkwifi and i get this

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/gtkwifi", line 27, in ?
import pygtk
ImportError: No module named pygtk


Can anyone help?

[Mr Frosti]

Originally Posted by Nano Ok, cool, but still I don't understand what's different and/or better than the default network manager.

The default Network Monitor for Gnome seems to be more of an overall network manager, than something made with wireless networks in mind. There is a need, imo for a dedicated wifi tool, hence this guide. I wanted something that could manage preferred networks and quickly tell me what is available in the area. Creating profiles to do this in the Network Monitor was a painstaking task that seemed to hang for longer than it should.