Hardy, Wicd, How to automatically connect to Internet?

[LillaEpsilon]

I use the Wicd network manager in Hardy Heron, and it works well -- except that I have to manually connect to the internet (both wired and wireless) when I

a) turn the computer on, or
b) wake the computer up from "sleeping" after it has been left for a while.

I have checked the "automatically connect" on my home/work networks in the particular networks' settings in Wicd, but that doesn't seem to make any difference.

Ideas, anyone?
Thanks!

[khaelo]

First post alert...I have the exact same issue in Xubuntu 8.04. Any solutions in the past two months? Search didn't turn up anything on this particular problem.

Details: WEP encrypted home network. Wicd sees the network and connects when told to do so, the login info stays in its memory, and the autoconnect box is checked under "Advanced Settings." It just refuses to connect automatically on boot. I have to click "connect..." on the tray icon, select my network from the list, and tell it "Connect" again. It's better than the "keyring password" nm-applet demanded, but still rather annoying.

Edit: Also, I completely(?) removed the default Network Manager -- two packages, uninstalled via Synaptic. I see other posts talking about Wicd and Network Manager interacting/interfering with one another, but my Wicd download wouldn't install until I got rid of Network Manager. Don't know if that makes a difference, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[imdano]

Try the newest version (1.5.0rc5) from www.wicd.net/latest and see if works then. The directory structure changed quite a bit from 1.4.2 (no more /opt/wicd/), so make sure you read the man entry after you install.

[linuxonbute]

Try the newest version (1.5.0rc5) from www.wicd.net/latest and see if works then. The directory structure changed quite a bit from 1.4.2 (no more /opt/wicd/), so make sure you read the man entry after you install.

I added the following repository to 8.04 and used synaptic to install wicd:
http://apt.wicd.net gutsy extras

This removed network manager and installed wicd ( into /opt/wicd etc )

after configuring it it worked fine. It should also keep being updated as new versions come out.

[imdano]

Right now the newest version in the apt repository is 1.4.2. 1.5.0 will be added once it reaches its final release (probably not for another week or two, our packager is on vacation right now). If 1.4.2 is working fine there's no harm in waiting, but 1.5.0 is a pretty big improvement so its worth trying now if you're having problems.

[khaelo]

Aquiring new repositories is beyond my Linux-skills right now, so I picked up a 1.5.0 "testing" from SourceForge. Wicd's buttons now look nicer. However, the original problem still stands. Did I need to uninstall the older version? I just installed the new one from the .deb file and assumed it would update/replace the previous installation, but maybe that isn't the case? Also, where is the man entry?

The refusal to autoconnect isn't limited to encrypted networks, either, by the way. I tested it on a teashop's WiFi. Also, the problem is occurring in an identical manner on both my Dell Inspiron 600m laptop (Xubuntu 8.04 on a harddrive partion) and my EEE PC 900 (eeeXubuntu 7.10 on SDHC card). So I don't think hardware is behind this, thank goodness.

[imdano]

Is the autoconnect problem something you only see on reboot? Or does it also not connect if you manually disconnect, then restart the wicd daemon/tray? The man entry should be found just by running "man wicd", but its possible that wasn't added until after the most recent rc5 build (I can't remember...).

Most likely this problem is caused by your wireless interface not coming up until after wicd's autoconnection logic runs. I'm not really sure if the delay is related to the card/driver itself or something related to network configuration. I'll think about a solution, though it might be tricky to test because I can't reproduce it.

[LillaEpsilon]

Hi guys, I didn't see your replies until now, so please excuse the late reply.

I found a partial solution to the problem, through this forum: http://wicd.net/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=6

It turns out that checking "automatically connect" only works for your "default profile", which you have to set manually.

That is, now I can automatically connect to the wired network because I chose it to be my default profile. But I still have to manually connect to wireless networks. You can probably also set your home wireless as default (I didn't try that), my problem is that I use many different networks daily, but I can only choose one of them as default (or, in my case, all the wired ones).

So I would like to be able to have several "accepted" networks, but I haven't figured out how. If anyone finds out, please tell!

[imdano]

The "default profile" thing only applies to wired networks. You can set as many wireless networks as you want to automatically connect. It works like this:
- The autoconnect method starts.

- It checks for the presence of an ethernet cable.

- If it finds one, it will automatically connect according to the "Wired Autoconnect" option selected in wicd's preferences window. There are three options:
1) Use default profile
2) Prompt for profile
3) Use previously selected profile

- If "Use default profile" is selected, wicd will search through all the wired profiles you have to see if you've checked the "Use as default profile" checkbox for any of them. If it finds one, it connects using that profile. This is what is currently happening in your case.

- If there is no ethernet cable plugged in, or if "Use default profile" is selected, but none of your wired profiles have the default profile checkbox selected, wicd will try to connect to a wireless network. This is what was happening before you selected a default wired profile.

- If wicd is set not to or cannot connect to a wired network, it will go through all the networks found in your wireless scan, and check to see if "Automatically connect to this network" is selected. As soon as it finds one, it tries to connect to that network. Now, for some reason wicd wasn't completing this step properly for you. I mentioned some possible reasons why in my last post.

[LillaEpsilon]

Thanks for the explanations imdano. I may have ignored intelligent things you said before because your lanugage is a bit out of my "first cup of ubuntu"-vocabulary.

But my wicd does not ever automatically connect to any wireless network (and it automatically connects to all the wired networks I use, I don't know if that is interesting. Why does default profile only apply to wired networks?)

But these are minor problems, which I hope will be fixed in the next version.