Re: Issues with NetworkManager on 13.37/x86_64 and Xfce4-4.6.2

On Sun, 20 May 2012 17:06:22 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard <[email protected]> wrote:

>    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.)


It is indeed incorrect.  I'm pretty sure you're mis-remembering it;
it was almost certainly "make headers_install" that you were told
not to do.

Other than those things compiled statically into your kernel image,
you have absolutely no drivers for your hardware.  None.  Those
kernel modules you're missing are the hardware drivers.  You're not
ever going to have *any* network (wired, wireless, token ring, ...)
without the kernel modules for them.


>    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.


Per the above, there isn't an installed driver.


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


Sure, that's fine.  I'd do it the way Pat did it in -current instead,
but that's your call.


>    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.


The kernel doesn't load any of that.  The init script (rc.wicd) starts
the daemon, and the client application is started by your desktop
environment.  Check the autostart files/function for it.


>    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.


If you're going to use NM, then you have to use NM.  Nobody (including
me) is going to bother trying to support your hybrid setup.

NM will allow you to use static ip addresses for the wired interface
and still let the wireless work as expected.  Do it that way.


>    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.


Again, there's no driver for eth0.  I'm guessing that eth0 isn't 
even showing up in "ifconfig -a" output, right?

-RW