I’m having trouble with the newly installed suse on my laptop. My wifi dies from time to time randomly. And today I can’t even connect anymore. I switched to use ifconfig and connected my wifi without problem (using Yast-ifconfig) Putting that aside, I’m here to ask if I’m better off just using ifconfig instead. I see network manager is generally suggested though.
What are the pros and cons of ifconfig?
The main point of NetworkManager, is that a laptop is often moved from place to place and needs to connect to different networks.
If you are almost always connecting to the same network, then it does not make a lot of difference whether you use NetworkManager or “ifup” mode. Since “ifup” seems to be more reliable for you, just go with it.
Are you actually saying you’re using
Yast > Network Settings > Overview Tab > Select physical adapter > Edit
I found it worked for me fine in an emergency but was lacking in features. If your machine always connects to a single network, it seemed fine but was lacking in management features managing multiple networks.
I doubt the method you use to manage your WiFi connections matters, I would guess with time you’ll experience the same no matter what you choose.
Recommend looking more closely at what might be happening (maybe capturing packets, eg Wireshark or Kismet.
Although you can install wpa_gui, I couldn’t get it to work properly. I didn’t follow up, if you try this and have problems also, then maybe contributing a bug at http://bugzilla.novell.com would be appreciated (and I can take another look).
Or, if you don’t mind working in a consolel, <all> contemporary WiFi management apps use wpa_supplicant for wpa connections (There should be a very recent “version 2” in Factory today). When I can’t run NM and before YAST could connect to WiFi, I would use wpa_supplicant to make my wpa connections and iw for my open and WEP connections.
HTH,
TSU
On 2013-05-27 16:06, nrickert wrote:
>
> bonedriven;2560536 Wrote:
>> What are the pros and cons of ifconfig?
>
> The main point of NetworkManager, is that a laptop is often moved from
> place to place and needs to connect to different networks.
>
> If you are almost always connecting to the same network, then it does
> not make a lot of difference whether you use NetworkManager or “ifup”
> mode. Since “ifup” seems to be more reliable for you, just go with it.
+1
There was a method, while using ifup, to make easy the change of
settings, but I don’t know if 12.3 supports it. It was “scpm”. You store
profiles, and switch from one to another; the switch saves the change
you made to many config files and restarts those services.
I’ll have to check it.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
One more reason I use Network Manager (under KDE on 12.2 on my main box)
is not just for my home network (I’m wired at home, and I almost never
move around) but because of VPNs. The Network Manager option to work with
VPNs is just great. Click on VPN, it connects, done. I don’t need
external software, or to run scripts… the only VPNs with which I have
any problems are those requiring a crappy browser or proprietary
non-operating system (aka, microsoft windows) to get connected, and
generally I avoid those or connect once and then find a way to work around
that going forward because it’s too much work. Anyway, if you do much
with VPNs (Cisco, OpenVPN, PPTP, etc.) then Network Manager makes those
beautiful. I have about a dozen current configurations defined for
different clients.
Good luck.
Thanks all for the input. It looks like I should fix the network manager since it’s so versatile, as I do change my internet environment often with the laptop.
On 2013-05-27 16:18, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> There was a method, while using ifup, to make easy the change of
> settings, but I don’t know if 12.3 supports it. It was “scpm”. You store
> profiles, and switch from one to another; the switch saves the change
> you made to many config files and restarts those services.
>
> I’ll have to check it.
The package is there, it appears to work, but it doesn’t.
I created two profiles, one using ifup, another using network manager.
The switch command was unable to change from one to the other (but did
not generate an error message).
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
Another plus of using NetworkManager is the option to create different profiles for the same wireless or wired network.
For example for one profile you may define static DNS for your wireless network. For another profile you might set it to get the DNS via DHCP and to switch between the profiles is just few clicks.
It is also perfect for fixed IP addresses for wired network for example (a bit like Think Vantage connections from IBM) but it works much better and switching from one static profile to another is also few clicks away and changes the IP address almost instantly.
One of the things I found out recently, is that people edit /etc/resolv.conf. Once you’ve done that, the Networkmanager is not going to update it. This can lead to problems when connecting to other networks, like semi-public ones in coffee shops, on trains etc. The fix to this is to switch off networking temporarily, then remove /etc/resolv.conf, then reenable the networking.
On 2013-05-27 22:46, Knurpht wrote:
> One of the things I found out recently, is that people edit
> /etc/resolv.conf. Once you’ve done that, the Networkmanager is not going
> to update it.
True. But the file itself says so in a comment, you only need to read it 
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)