Issues with NetworkManager on 13.37/x86_64 and Xfce4-4.6.2

   On a Sony Vaio laptop built last November I cannot get wireless networking
running. The wifi chip is an Intel Centrino 1000-N. The machine runs the
3.2.7 kernel with the 2.6.37.6 modules (I read somewhere that I should not
make-modules install with the new kernel; if that's incorrect that'll be the
first thing I do.)

   I've had no luck getting wicd to allow wireless connections so I just
built and installed NetworkManager and netwok-manager-applet from the SBo
site. I'm wondering if the installed driver doesn't support that new chip.

   In /etc/rc.d/rc.M I commented out the section for wicd and added a section
for NetworkManager.

   When the laptop boots warning messages are displayed because wicd cannot
be connected to the D-bus. I cannot find where the kernel is trying to load
wicd since it's commente out of rc.M and rc.wicd has the executable bits
turned off.

   Then, when I try to ping another host on the LAN, or a site on the Web,
I'm told the network is unreachable. Turns out that's because NetworkManager
clears all entries from /etc/resolv.conf. I don't understand why it does
this when I have a perfectly good resolv.conf available. On the LAN with
eth0 we use static IP addresses (defined in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf), but
wlan0 needs to use DHCP.

   nm-applet puts an icon on the xfce4 panel, but it tells me that eth0 is
disconnected even though it's supposed to be auto-connect.

   I'd greatly appreciate your help in getting both eth0 and wlan0 running on
this laptop with NetworkManager as that seems more likely based on wicd not
bringing down eth0 when wlan0 us up (even with ifplugd and a script offered
here).

Rich