Hi, here’s my guide to make nm-applet work on KDE4. It does not work on a freshly installed system (11.4). This guide is aimed at total beginners. If a user follows all the steps, it ends up with a working nm-applet in KDE4.
I have confirmation from different users, that the KNetworkManager crippled even ifup usage for wifi! My mobile bb support in KNM was very buggy and illogical. It did not work at all (in openSUSE 11.3 it worked but with problems).
So - all in all - if you want to blame kernel or firmware, first make yourself a GNOMISH nm-applet in your KDE4. For now, KNM/PNM are just work in progress, imho, useless waste of time.
This looks like a very good article which required lots of effort. You might want to duplicate this in the Unreviewed How To and FAQ forum section, though I am not the expert on such things. I have book marked this information and will give it a try on my next openSUSE 11.4 installation. Thanks for your efforts there mieszkaniec_lasu.
I am happy that the manual works for you and others.
The Networkmanager-GNOME makes our Suses wifi work. I vote it to be the default for openSUSE for all desktop environments. I don’t uderstand the aim of releasing the KDE desktop for openSUSE with a totally work-in-progress wifi GUI. I think it’s a showstopper and really bad promotion for Linux in general, when users can’t connect to mobile bb and even wifi at all. Out of curiosity I’ve tried to make nm-applet run on KDE4, but it’s results were a shock for me. Everything worked with two mouse clicks. Polish UMTS provider was found in 1 second and I was already online with nm-applet. Please use it, before you blame kernel or other things. It’s very possible, Networkmanager-kde4-libs are fault, even if you use traditional ifup.
I am adding my thanks for this thread. I have made the change to two computers, and it is working well.
For the benefit of those wondering about the differences, the important ones for me are:
(1) You can set up a connection that is available to all users (requires root key). And if you have such a connection configured to be automatic, the computer will connect even before anybody logs in. You can log out, go to a command line console session, and stay connected.
(2) Connections to a hidden network operate smoothly and reliably.
(3) The user interface seems a bit more natural than with the KDE applet.
I suggest that future version of openSuSE/KDE use this, at least until there is a fully functional KDE version of the applet.
Thank you for sharing your experience. From what I see, switching to Networkmanager-GNOME is plainly the thing to do in KDE4.
It solves a lot of problems. Thank you also for the idea of a connection available to many users! Great news.
**
Can this thread be done sticky? **I agree and I am convinced - Networkmanager-GNOME should be openSUSE’s default for any desktop environment.
Thanks for this thread. I use nm-applet many years with KDE. In the past you could simply start nm-applet with no need to configure anything. Now works fine with openSUSE 11.4 / KDE 4.6, great. OpenVPN with knetworkmanager doesn’t work when using x509 and private key file has password. Knetworkmanager is very buggy.
@Thilo, did u have to use the guide to make nm-applet work? If so, I am happy that the guide helped. I can see many strangest bugs in knm/pnm. But today I was shocked to find this:
… another funny bug. As I am no developer or coder, I don’t know how this happens. Making a few guesses I found the guilty one: Virtualbox. After deinstalling, network and samba worked again.
It would be nice to understand if this is really Network-manager KDE4-libs that are not working. And in that case who is the responsible developer since this goes on since 4.0 if I am not mistaken. Stability of NM in KDE was even one priority point since 4.3. Did anybody file a bug report to KDE for this? And is this really a KDE problem or more a OpenSUSE KDE implementation problem? Just to help in some decisions. Thanks.
Yes, definitely would it be nice. Though I did experience these issues with Kubuntu 10.04 and 9.10 and 9.04 too.
As I:
do not file bug reports
do not test on many computers (just 2 - 3)
do not actively take part in development
-> so I do not judge if it’s the distro’s or KDE’s fault. I am a common working man and if it doesn’t work for me, I try to find a sollution. If I find one, I share it with others and am happy when it’s helpful.
I still say: MAKE NETWORKMANAGER-GNOME A DEFAULT FOR EVERY DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT IN SUSE! It’s a very BAD KDE promotion to release a totally unready and extremely buggy network manager with a stable, mainstream openSUSE 11.4 distribution. It just doesn’t make sense. Maybe a good lesson for future releases.
On 03/26/2011 02:06 AM, mieszkaniec lasu wrote:
>
> stakanov;2312159 Wrote:
>> It would be nice to understand if this is really Network-manager
>> KDE4-libs that are not working. And in that case who is the responsible
>> developer since this goes on since 4.0 if I am not mistaken. Stability
>> of NM in KDE was even one priority point since 4.3. Did anybody file a
>> bug report to KDE for this? And is this really a KDE problem or more a
>> OpenSUSE KDE implementation problem? Just to help in some decisions.
>> Thanks.
>
> Yes, definitely would it be nice. Though I did experience these issues
> with Kubuntu 10.04 and 9.10 and 9.04 too.
>
> As I:
> - do not file bug reports
> - do not test on many computers (just 2 - 3)
> - do not actively take part in development
>
> -> so I do not judge if it’s the distro’s or KDE’s fault. I am a common
> working man and if it doesn’t work for me, I try to find a sollution. If
> I find one, I share it with others and am happy when it’s helpful.
>
> I still say: MAKE NETWORKMANAGER-GNOME A DEFAULT FOR EVERY DESKTOP
> ENVIRONMENT IN SUSE! It’s a very BAD KDE promotion to release a totally
> unready and extremely buggy network manager with a stable, mainstream
> openSUSE 11.4 distribution. It just doesn’t make sense. Maybe a good
> lesson for future releases.
I do not agree with your analysisas I think it is too simplistic. I have had one
case where wireless was soft blocked and I was unable to clear rhe block. To see
what would happen, I switched from knetworkmanager to the plasmoid and it began
working. Mystified, I switched back to knetworkmanager, AND IT STILL WORKED.
There is a subtle bug somewhere, but I have not been able to pinpoint the
location. On the otherhand, I would not go so far as to call it “extremely
buggy”. If you can reproducibly define a bug, then report it; however, your kind
of blanket statement does no real good.
Well. I am not to blame anybody. I also do not pretend to be an expert. I look for no offence against pnm/knm creators. But why is it in the stable released distro openSUSE 11.4? When they could’ve taken nm-applet for every dektop envir.
Maybe i wasn’t tested engough. Anyway, see another example: Fix for Knetworkmanagers hidden SSID issue - The user applied my guide and it works. It’s just far more robust and simple. I do not agree, that my statement does no good. Confused users finally get their wireless and mobile bb to work! In case there are still doubts regarding, if my sollution does any good, another one: Mobile Broadband See yourself.
Now, today I’ve tested the plasmoid and nm-applet again and recorded Networkmanager logs. I will post them in my blog along with many screenshots of what has happened. Sorry, but too busy now. I would like to help fixing the pnm and knm. Because these “subtle bugs” are serious showstoppers for newbees, imho.
Hi, just after I am getting more positive comments on using nm-applet, I would like to confirm, it still helps people to solve issues with wifi, WPA2 and mobile broadband. Especially mobile bb is very tricky in KDE with the default network managers provided by the 11.4 release of opensuse. Today I just saw a few more positive comments.
So, before blaming your firmware, kernel, driver, maybe just give nm-applet a go on your KDE suse. If it still doesn’t work, it’s no problem to get the original manager back. At least you’ll be sure, it’s not knm/pnm playing their tricks on you.
Hi folks.
I need to know how nm-applet does. I had the idea, that a gui was opened, to put in information.
But I feel, that it’s a full matter of doing all things automatically ?.
With nm-applet running, there should be an icon in the tray. You can right-click on that to define connections. You can left-click to see properties of the current connection.
If the icon is not there, then either nm-applet is not running, or NetworkManager is not running, or something is broken.
If you did not change GTK Styles and fonts to something other than “oxygen-gtk”, then nm-applet is probably exiting because it does not like that choice. The suggestion, as I recall, was to change it to QtCurve (which you might first need to install).
thanx for the guide to switch to nm-applet. Opensuse 11.4 kde 64 bit - i could only get wired connections working with kde network manager or the plasmoid. With my other opensuse 11.4 lxde , xfce machines - the wireless network worked right frm the start.