I had excellent control over my wifi connections under 11.4 (64) & KDE 4.7.4. When I did an update and then upgraded to 4.8.00 I noticed that after a reboot I had no wifi connections available (i.e. none showing up in networkmanager). I soon discovered a workaround… If I click on the Networkmanager icon on the taskbar and then clear the checkbox for “Enable Wireless” then recheck it all the nearby wifi connections would show up and everything worked fine. Unfortunately I didn’t notice if the problem appeared between the update and the upgrade to 4.8.
One other point… once a connection is established only that connection is listed in Networkmanager. In order to change connections I have to repeat the uncheck/check workaround.
Before addressing that issue I solved an unrelated problem by reloading with 12.1 / 4.8.00. I’d hoped the wifi issue would be resolved too but it was not. It happens with 12.1 (both 32 bit and 64 bit) with 4.7.2 and 4.8
I could live with the workaround or switch to ifup but this laptop moves around so much that I’d really come to love the ease of changing connections with Networkmanager.
I’m beginning to suspect this is simply a bug in which case I should report it. First I’d like to know if anyone here knows more than I do about this issue. In particular I’m confused as to whether this is a KDE issue or not. The data seems somewhat mixed wrt that question.
~> uname -a
Linux X205.site 3.1.9-1.4-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jan 27 08:55:10 UTC 2012 (efb5ff4) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
I actually had the same exact problem on my thinkpad. I got so frustrated that I just reinstalled and now it works fine. However, I was also having problems with the kde wallet so I changed it to never close, which for some reason seemed to help the issue. My laptop would still automatically connect to the networks that were saved in my networkmanager. This makes me think it was an issue with the kde side of things.
I just found a post on the KDE forums:
bcooksley - an administrator of that forum and an openSUSE user posted the following:
Please confirm that your wireless connection is indeed a “System connection” and that no power saving systems or physical switches are telling NetworkManager to start with Wireless disabled.
In my experience, connections must be created as System Connections, and cannot be switched afterward (at least for me, the state never stuck - I had to recreate it).
In my case I merely had to check “System Connection” and enter the root password and the change held through a reboot. After that the connections functioned normally.
I’m not experiencing problems, but am curious about this topic.
I have not verified, but assume that “system” connections are connections that are made during system boot, whereas “non-system” (unchecked) connections are made as in the past when a User logs in. Preliminarily, I have noticed that indeed it looks like a stub of KDE may be starting during bootup which may allow this type of configuration while KDE does not fully deploy until after a User logs in (maybe someone can verify what I think I’ve been observing?).
If what I’ve described is actually happening, then IMO there shouldn’t be any reason why there should be a problem scanning and recognizing available WiFi connections configured as “non-system.”
Am using KDE 4.7.2 (4.7.2) “release 5” which I believe is the current latest stable version.
I was also facing the problem regarding no wireless connection at start up either i have to wait 20-30 mins, so that it connects to internet, then i found clicking click and unclick enable wireless button in network manager connects to internet , now after selecting Wlan as system connection, its connects automatically on bootup. (my os 12.1 kde 4.7.2).