Suggestions for a GUI networking/wifi tool?

[shedyed]

I plan on adding this to the liveUSB that I have. I have been unsuccessful with CLI as I am not 100% sure that iwconfig can do WPA-PSK (using passphrase I believe). Other GUI tools in other distros have presented to me prompts for password and manual set up of IP addresses for the laptop in my LAN. It's an ipw2200 intel on a Thinkpad X41. Detected, yes, and I can assign essid, but entering the password gets tricky.

Since I am not able to go online, I choose to add the app at the end of my data on the FAT32 liveUSB that I use to boot sabayon.

[micia]

Not sure if you are asking for a suggestion or suggesting something
However if you want a low dependency and quite versatile network manager you could use wicd, NetworkManager is more standard and feature complete, you could use nm-applet-gtk2 to get a rid of many GNOME3 dependencies pullsed in by the GTK3 version nm-applet.

[shedyed]

I would like to download wicd and put it on the USB, to try out the connection. All the googling I've done shows equo install, which is fine if you're online. Is there a package or binary I can save for later use? I am not sure wicd was included; I'll check anyway.

[sabayonino]

I would like to download wicd and put it on the USB, to try out the connection. All the googling I've done shows equo install, which is fine if you're online. Is there a package or binary I can save for later use? I am not sure wicd was included; I'll check anyway.

"equo" can install a local package

Code: Select all

# equo install /path/package.tbz2

make sure all dependencies wicd needs

[shedyed]

Yikes I just found an earlier forum entry relating someone's experience downloading/installing wicd, and it seems dueling with dependencies was daunting, and it seemed he was unsuccessful. Yet IIRC, Sabayon 5 included wicd out-of-the-box. I was hoping not to relive his experiences; it has been a while since I've had to roll-my-own. Would it be possible to throw wicd in, in the next release? I may have to wait that long...

[micia]

wicd really has few dependencies:

- wicd
- urwid
if you have KDE4 and want a KDE specific frontend:
- wicd-client-kde

Nothing more.

By the way, any Sabayon Live edition (that has a GUI installed) has a network management GUI by default, which edition are you using?

[shedyed]

I checked /etc/sabayon-edition or -release and it's Sabayon 6 x86 with e17. I looked at its network tool (ConnMan? I am not sure) but it doesn't list my internal card ipw2200. I even plugged in a USB wifi stick, an RTsomething. They both list under iwlist and ifconfig, not on that GUI which remains blank, but my skills with wireless on CLI are limited to iwconfig <device> essid my-essid and that works on either card. It's entering the WPA-PSK (IIRC) password where I start losing my powers. I know either card will work, it's getting them to connect where I need the GUI.

Heck I'd be glad if it had wifi radar or something.

[shedyed]

Am thinking of wiping Sabayon 6 and using Sabayon 7 E17. Does Sabayon 7 E17 have extra gui tools for networking e.g. wicd? I hope it will be available out-of-the-box. I thought tacking on a package (to a USB) would be simple but it's a totally new package manager for me and CBA to learn/wing it.

[micia]

I think Sabayon E17 version has nm-applet, you should check out from a console if it is available, typing:

Code: Select all

nm-applet


as your user.