Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Russell Stuart]

On Thu, 2016-05-26 at 12:15 -0800, Britton Kerin wrote:
> On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 4:35 AM, Andrew Shadura 
> wrote:
> > There's no need in any of this, ifupdown already supports this mode
> > without anything apart from wpa-conf.
> > 
> > See /usr/share/doc/wpasupplicant/README.Debian.gz for more detals.

It does say that.  Maybe on Debian stable it even works.  However on my
laptop something was starting wpa_supplicant as a service at boot, and
I had to stop it in order to make it work from ifupdown.

> Ok, this approach does work if rfkill is added to the equation.  I
> tried it originally and it didn't seem to.  The problem is that my
> card boots up with rfkill activated, and ifup doesn't seem to know
> about this and reacts strangely.

I had the same problem on a machine running hostapd.  I thought it was
very odd the system booted with rfkill softly enabled.  Unlike you I
didn't believe the card or the driver would do something so daft, so I
went hunting for the culprit.  It turned out NetworkManager soft
turning rfkill on at boot, even though the interface was listed in
/etc/network/interfaces.  The ifupdown stanza for that interface is now
(somewhat elided):

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
pre-up  nmcli radio wifi off || :
pre-up  rfkill unblock wifi || :
        hostapd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

Both the nmcli and rfkill lines are absolutely required, and this is on
Jessie.  They may only be two extra lines, but it took me hours to
chase down what was happening so I could get hostapd running and while
giving the user pretty GUI interface for the other networks.

Given the NetworkManager.conf is as appears below, it seems to be
happing despite what the doco says.  It is this sort of crap that gives
these GUI interfaces a bad name among sysadmins.

[main]
plugins=ifupdown,keyfile

[ifupdown]
managed=false

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Russell Stuart]

On Thu, 2016-05-26 at 10:24 +0200, Michael Biebl wrote:
> It's hard to say though. For this we'd need proper debug logs to
> further investigate this.

You shamed me into doing something about it.  But now I test it,
network-manager works.  It's been 3 months and a similar number of
kernels, so who knows what it was.

Wicd still doesn't work.  If the interface hasn't been initialised with
ifupdown, it doesn't seem to realise the laptop has a wifi card.  When
it does know it has a Wifi card, it can't successfully connect.

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Britton Kerin]

On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 4:35 AM, Andrew Shadura  wrote:
> On 26 May 2016 at 09:16, Russell Stuart  wrote:
>> auto wifi_interface
>> iface wifi_interface inet dhcp
>> pre-up  systemctl stop wpa_supplicant || :
>> post-down   systemctl start wpa_supplicant || :
>> wpa-driver  nl80211,wext,wired
>> wpa-conf/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
>
> There's no need in any of this, ifupdown already supports this mode
> without anything apart from wpa-conf.
>
> See /usr/share/doc/wpasupplicant/README.Debian.gz for more details.

Ok, this approach does work if rfkill is added to the equation.  I
tried it originally
and it didn't seem to.  The problem is that my card boots up with
rfkill activated,
and ifup doesn't seem to know about this and reacts strangely.

After boot, it ends up with the interface activated but not working such that a
subsequent ifup fails, then ifdown succeeds, then ifup fails differently (when
rfkill not used).  Oddly, when an interactive ifup wlan0 fails, the interface
doesn't end up partly configured: after turning on the radio, a subsequent
ifup wlan0 succeeds.  It took a while to sort this out.

It seems to me that either:

 ifup should make sure to rfkill unblock wifi or the like, or
 ifup should fail and leave the interface fully unconfigured on boot

Here's a log showing the current behavior:

[bootup]
$ su
Password:
root@debian:/home/bkerin# ping www.google.com
ping: unknown host www.google.com
root@debian:/home/bkerin# ifup wlan0
ifup: interface wlan0 already configured
root@debian:/home/bkerin# ifdown wlan0
RTNETLINK answers: No such process
Killed old client process
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client 4.3.1
Copyright 2004-2014 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/

Listening on LPF/wlan0/a4:34:d9:c0:1f:f7
Sending on   LPF/wlan0/a4:34:d9:c0:1f:f7
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPRELEASE on wlan0 to 192.168.43.1 port 67
send_packet: Network is unreachable
send_packet: please consult README file regarding broadcast address.
dhclient.c:2331: Failed to send 300 byte long packet over fallback interface.
root@debian:/home/bkerin# ifup wlan0
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client 4.3.1
Copyright 2004-2014 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/

RTNETLINK answers: Operation not possible due to RF-kill
Listening on LPF/wlan0/a4:34:d9:c0:1f:f7
Sending on   LPF/wlan0/a4:34:d9:c0:1f:f7
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
send_packet: Network is down
dhclient.c:1966: Failed to send 300 byte long packet over wlan0 interface.
receive_packet failed on wlan0: Network is down
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
send_packet: Network is down
dhclient.c:1966: Failed to send 300 byte long packet over wlan0 interface.
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
send_packet: Network is down
dhclient.c:1966: Failed to send 300 byte long packet over wlan0 interface.
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
send_packet: Network is down
dhclient.c:1966: Failed to send 300 byte long packet over wlan0 interface.
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 17
send_packet: Network is down
dhclient.c:1966: Failed to send 300 byte long packet over wlan0 interface.
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 2
send_packet: Network is down
dhclient.c:1966: Failed to send 300 byte long packet over wlan0 interface.
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
RTNETLINK answers: Network is down
run-parts: /etc/network/if-up.d/avahi-autoipd exited with return code 2
Failed to bring up wlan0.
root@debian:/home/bkerin# rfkill unblock wifi
root@debian:/home/bkerin# ifup wlan0
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client 4.3.1
Copyright 2004-2014 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/

Listening on LPF/wlan0/a4:34:d9:c0:1f:f7
Sending on   LPF/wlan0/a4:34:d9:c0:1f:f7
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 4
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 4
DHCPREQUEST on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPOFFER from 192.168.43.1
DHCPACK from 192.168.43.1
bound to 192.168.43.103 -- renewal in 1698 seconds.
root@debian:/home/bkerin# ping www.google.com
PING www.google.com (216.58.194.164) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from sfo07s13-in-f4.1e100.net (216.58.194.164): icmp_seq=1
ttl=52 time=105 ms


Britton

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Ben Hutchings]

On Thu, 2016-05-26 at 05:26 +, darkestkhan wrote:
[...]
> It is worth remembering that network manager depends indirectly on
> systemd - not all of us have systemd installed. And not all of us know
> (or knew in this case) the invocation to bring up the wifi connection.

It doesn't require systemd as pid 1.  It does, I assume, depend on udev
and/or systemd-logind.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Usenet is essentially a HUGE group of people passing notes in class.
  - Rachel Kadel, `A Quick Guide to Newsgroup
Etiquette'


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Michael Biebl]

Am 26.05.2016 um 09:16 schrieb Russell Stuart:
> partly.  Among the things that didn't work were wicd (kept on
> reinitialising the interface every 10 seconds or so) and network-
> manager (didn't recognise the interface at all).  This initially caused
> a lot of head scratching and wasted time because I blamed the drivers
> of new hardware.  But it worked 100% reliably when in desperation I
> configured it manually.

That might very well be the driver which is at fault here. NM uses the
modern nl80211 kernel interface by default to interact with wireless
interfaces and maybe your driver has incomplete/broken nl80211 support.

If you configured wpa_supplicant manually, it's possible that this used
the old wext interface, which in your case worked better with your driver.

It's hard to say though. For this we'd need proper debug logs to further
investigate this.

For testing purposes you can force NM to use wext via
wifi-wext-only=true in NetworkManager.conf, fwiw.

Regards,
Michael

-- 
Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the
universe are pointed away from Earth?



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Russell Stuart]

On Mon, 2016-05-23 at 08:28 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> Using low-level tools can indeed be tricky, so while they're more
> powerful than anything NM or wicd can do, they're an overkill and a
> waste of learning time if what you want is regular use of a single
> interface.

I have a new laptop on which only Stretch worked - and then only
partly.  Among the things that didn't work were wicd (kept on
reinitialising the interface every 10 seconds or so) and network-
manager (didn't recognise the interface at all).  This initially caused
a lot of head scratching and wasted time because I blamed the drivers
of new hardware.  But it worked 100% reliably when in desperation I
configured it manually.

If you are posting to debian-devel manual configuration should not be
hard for you.  Ensure ifupdown and ifplugd are installed.  Add this
into /etc/network/interfaces:

auto wifi_interface
iface wifi_interface inet dhcp
pre-up  systemctl stop wpa_supplicant || :
post-down   systemctl start wpa_supplicant || :
wpa-driver  nl80211,wext,wired 
wpa-conf/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

And add stanza's like this to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
for each WiFi network you want to use:

network={
ssid="a-network-i-use"
psk="super-secret"
}

network={
        ssid="another-network-i-use"
psk="another-secret"
}


Doing it like this drops the amount of code between you and the metal
by an order of magnitude.  Reliability goes up accordingly.  Day to day
usage is identical - it just works wherever you are, connecting you to
the local network at boot without you having to raise a finger.  Ease
of configuration is a matter of taste - I happen to prefer to being
able to see all my wifi networks in a text editor, so I won't be using
wicd or network-manager for wifi again.

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[darkestkhan]

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 7:45 PM, Andrew Shadura
 wrote:
>
> On 23 May 2016 15:50, "Wookey"  wrote:
>>
>> +++ Adam Borowski [2016-05-23 12:10 +0200]:
>>
>> > we keep wicd for non-Gnome users who want a clicky-clicky wifi manager.
>> >
>> > The rest, well, are on their own with console tools.
>>
>> wicd has curses and command-line interfaces too (as well as the
>> gtk one). One of its nice features.
>
> It's actually very easy to configure wireless using plain ifupdown:
>
> iface wlan0 inet dhcp
>   wpa-ssid NetworkName
>   wpa-psk VerySecurePassword
>
> --
> A.

Thanks man - you are the real hero :)

-- 

darkestkhan
--
Feel free to CC me.
jid: darkestk...@gmail.com
May The Source be with You.

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[darkestkhan]

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 10:06 PM, Adam Borowski  wrote:
> On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 01:17:08PM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
>> On Mon, 2016-05-23 at 12:10 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
>> > On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 11:39:06AM +0200, Abou Al Montacir wrote:
>> > > Login in Gnome once, activate wifi and ask that the connection should be 
>> > > used by
>> > > all users.
>> > > Then NM will save the password some were so that it connect without user 
>> > > login.
>> > Right... so you say non-Gnome users should keep a Gnome installation just 
>> > to
>> > enter the wifi password, and log out+log in to Gnome whenever they visit a
>> > new place (which on a laptop means, quite often) then log out+log in back 
>> > to
>> > their regular environment?  I think I'll pass.
>> [...]
>>
>> You already have passed.  Please stop spreading FUD about a program you
>> don't use and don't really know the state of.
>
> The original report from Britton Kerin doesn't look like FUD, what Vincent
> Bernat just confirmed and diagnosed: that the password UI is currently broken.
> Thus, I think my recommendation of trying wicd was helpful.
>
> Unlike network admins I work with (and who foam on the mouths at the words
> Network-Manager) I see it does have its uses: it can do a lot more than
> wicd.  Instead of just wifi like wicd, it can do pppoe and a bunch of simple
> VPN setups.
>
> It also gets improvements.  For example, all the years until and including
> jessie, it kept dropping configuration from usb0 interfaces every 30 seconds
> or so, even when explicitely told to leave it alone (the interface remained
> up but NM kept removing all IP addresses, etc).  It took a while but this
> bug is finally fixed.
>
> But it's not without problems.  The one Britton met is that NM's interface
> is closely married to Gnome.  Yes, you can use nm-cli but it's nowhere near
> pretty, so on a laptop or a phone you want a GUI.  Wicd's GUI works, NM's
> does not (at least currently or without extra messing).
>
> The second is, NM interferes with any complex setup.  In newer versions, you
> can now semi-reliable tell it to stay away from your interfaces, but then,
> if you disable it on all interfaces, why do you even have it installed?
>
> That's not an exhaustive list, I indeed hardly ever deal with setups that
> would benefit from NM so I rarely look at it.
>
> But, how is mentioning an alternative and/or recommending to try one FUD?
>
>
> Meow!
> --
> An imaginary friend squared is a real enemy.
>

It is worth remembering that network manager depends indirectly on
systemd - not all of us have systemd installed. And not all of us know
(or knew in this case) the invocation to bring up the wifi connection.

-- 

darkestkhan
--
Feel free to CC me.
jid: darkestk...@gmail.com
May The Source be with You.

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Nikolaus Rath]

On May 24 2016, Britton Kerin  wrote:
> On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 2:35 PM, Nikolaus Rath  wrote:
>> On May 22 2016, Britton Kerin  wrote:
>>> Got a new laptop after 10 years of excellent stable ancient debian,
>>> and my wireless works from gnome, and only from gnome.  Unfortunately
>>> I find that gnome3 is not for me.  I've been trying dwm.
>>
>> What trouble did you have? Network manager works perfectly well for me
>> without using Gnome as my desktop environment.
>
> It sometimes sor of works under nmcli, but it doesn't behave the same as
> under gnome.

Have you tried to use nm-applet instead of nmcli (from your dwn
environment)?


Best,
-Nikolaus

-- 
GPG encrypted emails preferred. Key id: 0xD113FCAC3C4E599F
Fingerprint: ED31 791B 2C5C 1613 AF38 8B8A D113 FCAC 3C4E 599F

 »Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a Banana.«

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Britton Kerin]

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 2:35 PM, Nikolaus Rath  wrote:
> On May 22 2016, Britton Kerin  wrote:
>> Got a new laptop after 10 years of excellent stable ancient debian,
>> and my wireless works from gnome, and only from gnome.  Unfortunately
>> I find that gnome3 is not for me.  I've been trying dwm.
>
> What trouble did you have? Network manager works perfectly well for me
> without using Gnome as my desktop environment.

It sometimes sor of works under nmcli, but it doesn't behave the same as
under gnome.  For example trying to bring a connection up with the radio
disabled fails completely differently:

Under gnome:

 $ nmcli networking off
 $ nmcli general status
 STATE   CONNECTIVITY  WIFI-HW  WIFI WWAN-HW  WWAN
 asleep  none  enabled  enabled  enabled  disabled
 $ nmcli radio wifi off
 $ nmcli general status
 STATE   CONNECTIVITY  WIFI-HW  WIFI WWAN-HW  WWAN
 asleep  none  enabled  enabled  enabled  disabled
 $ # So with networking off radio shutdown command is silently
ignored.  Lucky planes don't really care
 $ nmcli networking on
 $ nmcli general status
 STATE  CONNECTIVITY  WIFI-HW  WIFI WWAN-HW  WWAN
 connected  full  enabled  enabled  enabled  disabled
 $ nmcli radio wifi off
 $ nmcli general status
 STATE CONNECTIVITY  WIFI-HW  WIFI  WWAN-HW  WWAN
 disconnected  none  enabled  disabled  enabled  disabled
 $ nmcli connection up "MotoG3 9820"

 (process:6447): libnm-glib-WARNING **: async_got_type: could not
read properties for
/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/3: Method "Get" with
signature "ss" on interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" doesn't
exist

 Error: Connection activation failed: Creating object for path
'/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/3' failed in
libnm-glib.
 4 $

If I run dbus-monitor while trying that connection up command it shows
a message:

 signal sender=:1.34 -> dest=(null destination) serial=63
path=/org/gnome/zeitgeist/storagemonitor;
interface=org.gnome.zeitgeist.StorageMonitor;
member=StorageUnavailable
string "net"
 signal sender=:1.34 -> dest=(null destination) serial=64
path=/org/gnome/zeitgeist/storagemonitor;
interface=org.gnome.zeitgeist.StorageMonitor;
member=StorageUnavailable
string "net"

Under my dwm .xsession:

 # All the same prep commands and responsess as above up to this point:
 $ nmcli connection up "MotoG3 9820"

 (process:8697): libnm-glib-WARNING **: async_got_type: could not
read properties for
/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/10: Method "Get" with
signature "ss" on interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" doesn't
exist


 (process:8697): libnm-glib-WARNING **: async_got_type: could not
read properties for
/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/10: Method "Get" with
signature "ss" on interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" doesn't
exist


 (process:8697): libnm-glib-WARNING **: async_got_type: could not
read properties for
/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/10: Method "Get" with
signature "ss" on interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" doesn't
exist

 Error: Timeout 90 sec expired.

Nothing so helpful as an indication of what timed out, but I suspect it's
dbus-related.  I've also had it hang after bringing a connection up (which does
work if the radio is correctly enabled).  It took me a while to realize the
the connection was working and the hang happened later.  I don't know exactly
how to reproduce that at the moment though.

Running dbus-monitor during the connect command under dwm shows no messages
whatsoever.  A dbus-launch command is being performed on my behalf by whatever
code is responsible for launching my .xsession from the gnome-ish login screen:

 $ ps ax | grep dbus-launch | grep xsession
  8298 ?S  0:00 /usr/bin/dbus-launch
--exit-with-session /bin/bash /home/bkerin/.xsession
 $

Once one of these failed connection attempts has been made, /var/log/syslog
gets filled with message like this:

 May 24 11:01:59 debian NetworkManager[1962]:
(NetworkManager:1962): NetworkManager-wifi-CRITICAL **:
scanning_allowed: assertion 'priv->sup_iface != NULL' failed
 May 24 11:02:02 debian NetworkManager[1962]:
(NetworkManager:1962): NetworkManager-wifi-CRITICAL **:
scanning_allowed: assertion 'priv->sup_iface != NULL' failed

But this happens for both gnome and my dwm .xsession.

Bringing the connection up with nmcli sometimes work but othertimes I
get stuff like this:

 $ nmcli connection up dlink_223_dome_rd

 Error: Timeout 90 sec expired.
 3 $
 $ nmcli connection up dlink_223_dome_rd
 Error: Connection activation failed.
 4 $ nmcli connection up dlink_223_dome_rd
 Error: Connection activation failed.
 4 $ nmcli connection up dlink_223_dome_rd
 Error: Connection 

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Ian Jackson]

Adam Borowski writes ("Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the 
incantation?"):
> But it's not without problems.  The one Britton met is that NM's interface
> is closely married to Gnome.  Yes, you can use nm-cli but it's nowhere near
> pretty, so on a laptop or a phone you want a GUI.  Wicd's GUI works, NM's
> does not (at least currently or without extra messing).

I'm using network-manager with something that would be xfce if I ran
more of xfce, but is probably best described as a pre-desktop setup.
My window manager is vtwm.  The nm-applet sits happily in trayer, and
everything functions pretty much as I expect.

I'm happy with it.  (Although I did find a bug in the WPA2 enterprise
passphrase management which I mean to report at some point...)

Although, I am running systemd-logind and cgmanager because lightdm
gave them to me, so maybe that's why n-m works for me.  I haven't
found that systemd-logind and cgmanager cause any trouble so I haven't
bothered to avoid them.  (I'm running sysvinit.)

> The second is, NM interferes with any complex setup.  In newer versions, you
> can now semi-reliable tell it to stay away from your interfaces, but then,
> if you disable it on all interfaces, why do you even have it installed?

I have found that n-m is happy to leave alone my own VPN and my own
pppd 3G setup (which I run sometimes in parallel with wifi).  I had to
deinstall modemmanager because it interfered with the modem, even if
I had 3G support turned off in the nm-applet menu.[1]

> But, how is mentioning an alternative and/or recommending to try one FUD?

On the other hand, I am very happy that wicd exists.  If
network-manager annoyed me somehow I'm sure I would try wicd.

Ian.

[1] #683839 is tangentially related, but not really relevant, since if
modemmanager had a whitelist rather than a blacklist, it would still
have tried to fiddle with my modem.  It appears that #683839 is being
fixed upstream and hopefully stretch has these changes...

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Balasankar C]

On 23 May 2016 10:12:12 am IST, Britton Kerin  wrote:

>No combination of nmcli ifconfig iw ip rfkill unblock wpa_supplicant
>/etc/network/interfaces etc. that I've tried makes wireless work
>outside of gnome, 

I've been using nmcli without GNOME and it worked just fine. network-manager is 
one of the best tools I rely heavily on my daily life.

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Ben Hutchings]

On Tue, 2016-05-24 at 00:06 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 01:17:08PM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > 
> > On Mon, 2016-05-23 at 12:10 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > > 
> > > On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 11:39:06AM +0200, Abou Al Montacir wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Login in Gnome once, activate wifi and ask that the connection should 
> > > > be used by
> > > > all users.
> > > > Then NM will save the password some were so that it connect without 
> > > > user login.
> > > Right... so you say non-Gnome users should keep a Gnome installation just 
> > > to
> > > enter the wifi password, and log out+log in to Gnome whenever they visit a
> > > new place (which on a laptop means, quite often) then log out+log in back 
> > > to
> > > their regular environment?  I think I'll pass.
> > [...]
> > 
> > You already have passed.  Please stop spreading FUD about a program you
> > don't use and don't really know the state of.
> The original report from Britton Kerin doesn't look like FUD, what Vincent
> Bernat just confirmed and diagnosed: that the password UI is currently broken.
> Thus, I think my recommendation of trying wicd was helpful.

It may well be.

[...]
> But, how is mentioning an alternative and/or recommending to try one FUD?

It isn't.  That's why I only criticised the *last* part of what you
said.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once.

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Nikolaus Rath]

On May 22 2016, Britton Kerin  wrote:
> Got a new laptop after 10 years of excellent stable ancient debian,
> and my wireless works from gnome, and only from gnome.  Unfortunately
> I find that gnome3 is not for me.  I've been trying dwm.

What trouble did you have? Network manager works perfectly well for me
without using Gnome as my desktop environment.


Best,
-Nikolaus

-- 
GPG encrypted emails preferred. Key id: 0xD113FCAC3C4E599F
Fingerprint: ED31 791B 2C5C 1613 AF38 8B8A D113 FCAC 3C4E 599F

 »Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a Banana.«

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Nikolaus Rath]

On May 24 2016, Adam Borowski  wrote:
> But it's not without problems.  The one Britton met is that NM's interface
> is closely married to Gnome.

I am not sure what you mean by "closely married", but NM works perfectly
well for me in an i3 "environment". I am not disputing that it pulls in
some Gnome libraries though if that's what you mean.

Best,
-Nikolaus

-- 
GPG encrypted emails preferred. Key id: 0xD113FCAC3C4E599F
Fingerprint: ED31 791B 2C5C 1613 AF38 8B8A D113 FCAC 3C4E 599F

 »Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a Banana.«

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Adam Borowski]

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 01:17:08PM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Mon, 2016-05-23 at 12:10 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 11:39:06AM +0200, Abou Al Montacir wrote:
> > > Login in Gnome once, activate wifi and ask that the connection should be 
> > > used by
> > > all users.
> > > Then NM will save the password some were so that it connect without user 
> > > login.
> > Right... so you say non-Gnome users should keep a Gnome installation just to
> > enter the wifi password, and log out+log in to Gnome whenever they visit a
> > new place (which on a laptop means, quite often) then log out+log in back to
> > their regular environment?  I think I'll pass.
> [...]
> 
> You already have passed.  Please stop spreading FUD about a program you
> don't use and don't really know the state of.

The original report from Britton Kerin doesn't look like FUD, what Vincent
Bernat just confirmed and diagnosed: that the password UI is currently broken.
Thus, I think my recommendation of trying wicd was helpful.

Unlike network admins I work with (and who foam on the mouths at the words
Network-Manager) I see it does have its uses: it can do a lot more than
wicd.  Instead of just wifi like wicd, it can do pppoe and a bunch of simple
VPN setups.

It also gets improvements.  For example, all the years until and including
jessie, it kept dropping configuration from usb0 interfaces every 30 seconds
or so, even when explicitely told to leave it alone (the interface remained
up but NM kept removing all IP addresses, etc).  It took a while but this
bug is finally fixed.

But it's not without problems.  The one Britton met is that NM's interface
is closely married to Gnome.  Yes, you can use nm-cli but it's nowhere near
pretty, so on a laptop or a phone you want a GUI.  Wicd's GUI works, NM's
does not (at least currently or without extra messing).

The second is, NM interferes with any complex setup.  In newer versions, you
can now semi-reliable tell it to stay away from your interfaces, but then,
if you disable it on all interfaces, why do you even have it installed?

That's not an exhaustive list, I indeed hardly ever deal with setups that
would benefit from NM so I rarely look at it.

But, how is mentioning an alternative and/or recommending to try one FUD?


Meow!
-- 
An imaginary friend squared is a real enemy.

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Andrew Shadura]

On 23 May 2016 15:50, "Wookey"  wrote:
>
> +++ Adam Borowski [2016-05-23 12:10 +0200]:
>
> > we keep wicd for non-Gnome users who want a clicky-clicky wifi manager.
> >
> > The rest, well, are on their own with console tools.
>
> wicd has curses and command-line interfaces too (as well as the
> gtk one). One of its nice features.

It's actually very easy to configure wireless using plain ifupdown:

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
  wpa-ssid NetworkName
  wpa-psk VerySecurePassword

-- 
A.

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Wookey]

+++ Adam Borowski [2016-05-23 12:10 +0200]:

> we keep wicd for non-Gnome users who want a clicky-clicky wifi manager.
> 
> The rest, well, are on their own with console tools.

wicd has curses and command-line interfaces too (as well as the
gtk one). One of its nice features.

Wookey
-- 
Principal hats:  Linaro, Debian, Wookware, ARM
http://wookware.org/


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Vincent Bernat]

 ❦ 23 mai 2016 12:10 +0200, Adam Borowski  :

>> > NM is closely tied to Gnome so regressions in non-Gnome use aren't
>> > surprising.
>> Login in Gnome once, activate wifi and ask that the connection should be 
>> used by
>> all users.
>> Then NM will save the password some were so that it connect without user 
>> login.
>
> Right... so you say non-Gnome users should keep a Gnome installation just to
> enter the wifi password, and log out+log in to Gnome whenever they visit a
> new place (which on a laptop means, quite often) then log out+log in back to
> their regular environment?  I think I'll pass.

NM is one of the few tools that needs nothing from Gnome to work. In my
environment, only the prompt for the password doesn't work. At some
point, I was using polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1 to get the
prompt, but now, I just open nm-connection-editor and enter the password
here.
-- 
For a light heart lives long.
-- Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost"


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Ben Hutchings]

On Mon, 2016-05-23 at 12:10 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 11:39:06AM +0200, Abou Al Montacir wrote:
> > 
> > On Mon, 2016-05-23 at 08:28 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > I'm posting here both in hope of a solution, and because this seems
> > > > like a bug.  How come this only works from gnome?  nmcli in particular
> > > > looks like it's trying to be a general-purpose solution, but somehow
> > > > it too only works from gnome.
> > > NM is closely tied to Gnome so regressions in non-Gnome use aren't
> > > surprising.
> > Login in Gnome once, activate wifi and ask that the connection should be 
> > used by
> > all users.
> > Then NM will save the password some were so that it connect without user 
> > login.
> Right... so you say non-Gnome users should keep a Gnome installation just to
> enter the wifi password, and log out+log in to Gnome whenever they visit a
> new place (which on a laptop means, quite often) then log out+log in back to
> their regular environment?  I think I'll pass.
[...]

You already have passed.  Please stop spreading FUD about a program you
don't use and don't really know the state of.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
You can't have everything.  Where would you put it?

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Adam Borowski]

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 11:39:06AM +0200, Abou Al Montacir wrote:
> On Mon, 2016-05-23 at 08:28 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > > 
> > > I'm posting here both in hope of a solution, and because this seems
> > > like a bug.  How come this only works from gnome?  nmcli in particular
> > > looks like it's trying to be a general-purpose solution, but somehow
> > > it too only works from gnome.
> > NM is closely tied to Gnome so regressions in non-Gnome use aren't
> > surprising.
> Login in Gnome once, activate wifi and ask that the connection should be used 
> by
> all users.
> Then NM will save the password some were so that it connect without user 
> login.

Right... so you say non-Gnome users should keep a Gnome installation just to
enter the wifi password, and log out+log in to Gnome whenever they visit a
new place (which on a laptop means, quite often) then log out+log in back to
their regular environment?  I think I'll pass.

No one demands the Gnome team to make their tools work in unrelated
enviroments (such as DWM Britton uses), but if those tools don't work, they
cannot be touted as the only solution.  And that's why we keep wicd for
non-Gnome users who want a clicky-clicky wifi manager.

Sure, wicd has only a small fraction of Network-Manager's functionality, but
it does what 95% of laptop users need.  The rest, well, are on their own
with console tools.


-- 
An imaginary friend squared is a real enemy.

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Abou Al Montacir]

On Mon, 2016-05-23 at 08:28 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > 
> > I'm posting here both in hope of a solution, and because this seems
> > like a bug.  How come this only works from gnome?  nmcli in particular
> > looks like it's trying to be a general-purpose solution, but somehow
> > it too only works from gnome.
> NM is closely tied to Gnome so regressions in non-Gnome use aren't
> surprising.
Login in Gnome once, activate wifi and ask that the connection should be used by
all users.
Then NM will save the password some were so that it connect without user login.
Hope this works also for you.
-- 
Cheers,
Abou Al Montacir



signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Mechtilde]

Hello,

For Lan and WLan i use network-manager under XFCE succesfully.

Regards

Mechtilde


Am 23.05.2016 um 08:28 schrieb Adam Borowski:
> On Sun, May 22, 2016 at 08:42:12PM -0800, Britton Kerin wrote:
>> Got a new laptop after 10 years of excellent stable ancient debian,
>> and my wireless works from gnome, and only from gnome.  Unfortunately
>> I find that gnome3 is not for me.  I've been trying dwm.
>>
>> No combination of nmcli ifconfig iw ip rfkill unblock wpa_supplicant
>> /etc/network/interfaces etc. that I've tried makes wireless work
>> outside of gnome, and I've googled much and tried many of them.  It
>> seems like a waste of time, since clearly nm-applet and/or
>> NetworkManager knows the magic spell.
> If for whatever reason NetworkManager doesn't work for you, and you want an
> easy to use alternative, I'd recommend wicd.
>
> Using low-level tools can indeed be tricky, so while they're more powerful
> than anything NM or wicd can do, they're an overkill and a waste of learning
> time if what you want is regular use of a single interface.
>
>> I'm posting here both in hope of a solution, and because this seems
>> like a bug.  How come this only works from gnome?  nmcli in particular
>> looks like it's trying to be a general-purpose solution, but somehow
>> it too only works from gnome.
> NM is closely tied to Gnome so regressions in non-Gnome use aren't
> surprising.
>




signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Adam Borowski]

On Sun, May 22, 2016 at 08:42:12PM -0800, Britton Kerin wrote:
> Got a new laptop after 10 years of excellent stable ancient debian,
> and my wireless works from gnome, and only from gnome.  Unfortunately
> I find that gnome3 is not for me.  I've been trying dwm.
> 
> No combination of nmcli ifconfig iw ip rfkill unblock wpa_supplicant
> /etc/network/interfaces etc. that I've tried makes wireless work
> outside of gnome, and I've googled much and tried many of them.  It
> seems like a waste of time, since clearly nm-applet and/or
> NetworkManager knows the magic spell.

If for whatever reason NetworkManager doesn't work for you, and you want an
easy to use alternative, I'd recommend wicd.

Using low-level tools can indeed be tricky, so while they're more powerful
than anything NM or wicd can do, they're an overkill and a waste of learning
time if what you want is regular use of a single interface.

> I'm posting here both in hope of a solution, and because this seems
> like a bug.  How come this only works from gnome?  nmcli in particular
> looks like it's trying to be a general-purpose solution, but somehow
> it too only works from gnome.

NM is closely tied to Gnome so regressions in non-Gnome use aren't
surprising.

-- 
An imaginary friend squared is a real enemy.

Re: trying to use wireless not from gnome... what's the incantation?

[Paul Wise]

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 12:42 PM, Britton Kerin wrote:

> Got a new laptop after 10 years of excellent stable ancient debian,
> and my wireless works from gnome, and only from gnome.

Please ask about this on a Debian user support channel:

https://www.debian.org/support

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise