This morning I saw connman pulled in by a full-upgrade. I use wicd for wifi connection management. Now when I boot the laptop it comes up with wifi disconnected, and a manual exercise to connect via wicd is required. I thought it would be a good idea to remove connman, but it looks like it might be a problem:
root@n5110:/home/don# apt remove connman
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
libnma0 network-manager-gnome
Suggested packages:
network-manager-openconnect-gnome network-manager-openvpn-gnome network-manager-vpnc-gnome
network-manager-pptp-gnome
The following packages will be REMOVED:
cmst connman lxqt
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libnma0 network-manager-gnome
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 3 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,073 kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,908 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
I don't think I want lxqt removed!
Here is the system:
System: Host: n5110 Kernel: 4.11.8-towo.1-siduction-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: LXQt
Distro: siduction 17.1.0 Patience - lxqt - (201703051830)
Machine: Device: portable System: Dell product: Inspiron N5110
Mobo: Dell model: 034W60 v: A11 BIOS: Dell v: A11 date: 08/03/2012
CPU: Dual core Intel Core i3-2330M (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
clock speeds: max: 2200 MHz 1: 799 MHz 2: 799 MHz 3: 799 MHz 4: 799 MHz
Graphics: Card: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
Display Server: X.Org 1.19.3 drivers: modesetting (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
Resolution: 1366x768@60.00hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Sandybridge Mobile GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.1.4
Audio: Card Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.11.8-towo.1-siduction-amd64
Network: Card-1: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller driver: r8169
IF: enp5s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Card-2: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 [Rainbow Peak] driver: iwlwifi
IF: wlp9s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 80.0GB (10.0% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: INTEL_SSDSA2CW08 size: 80.0GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 16G used: 5.6G (38%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.15GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 52.0C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 192 Uptime: 26 min Memory: 1100.0/3864.8MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.11
Any ideas? Shall I just get used to the situation for awhile? It's only an annoyance, not a major problem.
Changed the packages on weekend - make them more foolproof - seems to work 8)
@dibl - degraded cmst | network-manager-gnome to recommend again and put in wicd |nm-applet as alternative too. I'm not that happy with the situation at all, but it seems to be the only way to put some kind of network management ui in - the whole situation is messed up since years, the new meta-packages are a bit more sensible.
and btw - connman is cool
Thanks Alf!
Maybe I will give connman another try. Last time it gave me a headache before I got it to play nice with my hardware.
My idea was to use the time after stretch release and improve the packaging a little bit. Unfortunately the whole network stack in debian is a mess in that regard. Most people want nm based things, right now we have no proper UI for nm in LXQt - or a proper Qt UI even. So the idea was to force cmst | nm-gnome to an extend. Hmm, maybe connman has to much rough edges - for me it works fine since nearly three years. But there is a lot of improvement possible i guess.
I got to play with LXQt in a VM and it's not too bad, except for the theming methods. Got to play with connman and it is not too shabby as it does have VPN support (via plugins) like NetworkManager does. Connman has grown up some and sure to become a real competitor to NM. For those non-QT based systems I am sure there's a GTK based connman GUI too.
Would anyone switch to connman from NM on any other DE/WM? I would agree for LXQt there should be choices and allowing connman be purged and WICD/NM be installed if the user desires a different network connection management tool.
Most of the time the only problem is that people don't recognize lxqt as meta package - thats all, ok, wicd is in the game right now. So is nm-applet and nm-gnome and pure nm
Good to have choices though 8)
Thanks again. That laptop mostly stays home, so it is convenient to let wicd set it to automatically connect to my router on bootup. I am mostly a KDE user but even on KDE wicd and all its gtk dependencies provides a pretty reliable wireless network manager, in my experience. (Obviously, I am no QT purist ....). I am going to do an experiment to remove wicd and then attempt to configure connman on it and see what happens.
i really prefer working environments over pure ...
I am now connected via connman, wireless, from that same POS Dell laptop so it does indeed work. Is there any secret to set it to connect automatically at bootup?
Thanks for the support Alf! Indeed, good-working systems are preferred to idealogically pure systems, in my house.
EDIT: I dunno, just stupid, I guess. On bootup, connman shows no connections and no networks. However, I am connected -- ping and the browser are happy to connect to whatever. So, color me confused and happy. :P
Quote from: dibl on 2017/07/04, 23:58:20
I am now connected via connman, wireless, from that same POS Dell laptop so it does indeed work. Is there any secret to set it to connect automatically at bootup?
thats a debian policy - packages in optional or so must not conflict - so i guess you have still another network-manager up and running - Solution - purge or disable it and systemctl enable connman; systemctl start connman
Good -- thanks. Somehow, after I purged wicd, network-manager was running. I purged that and used systemctl to enable and start connman. Obviously I'm connected or you wouldn't see this post. But on the connman "Wireless" tab, the four top buttons including "Rescan" are all gray, and I see no routers in that window. At the point yesterday when I configured it and entered my wifi passkey, I could see all the routers around me, but I have not seen them since. It doesn't matter since it works, but I don't understand why the function buttons are all grayed out.
OMG I think I am hardcore. 8) Since the begin of my linux time I use /etc/network/interfaces
Greyd out... does it need root privileges?
Sometimes, when I use the wpa_gui and forget to start it as root, I get the message that wpa_gui can't connect to the wpa_supplicant and all things are greyd out.
Hmmmmm! That could be the issue. It never occurred to me that only root would be allowed to see the available routers and select one. Maybe I entered the passkey as root and attached root ownership to the config file. Possibly it's a user-caused problem -- stay tuned.
EDIT: No -- that's not the reason. I reviewed the user's home folder and subfolders, and nothing was owned by root.
"connmanctl" can be used as an interactive shell in a terminal to also set up the network of connman. I do find it useful at times. It has to be run as root. The man page is not bad. Source code appears to have a strong chunk from Intel employees. Integration with systemd seems well thought out. When using with wifi setup, the first action I do is "agent on"
Although not sharing a direct connect to lxqt - it is for me similar - they are both a good start from competent people.
Of course it is nice to have the options of nm and wicd. I did like in one install of lxqt with a wifi free board the install defaulted to ifup and nothing else added.