Just posting for the benefit of laptop users who need something more flexible than the standard Mepis tools and find wi-fi radar inadequate/ineffective and also have no desire to install network-manager or spend time in the terminal when they should already be connected and working.


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://wicd.sourceforge.net/"
linktext was:"wicd"
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is an excellent gui tool that enables you to easily connect to all kinds of wireless networks, Open, WEP, WPA etc.

Wicd is an open source wired and wireless network manager for Linux which aims to provide a simple interface to connect to networks with a wide variety of settings.

Some of Wicd's features include:

1. No Gnome dependencies, so it is easy to use in XFCE, Fluxbox, Openbox, Enlightenment, etc.
2. Ability to connect to wired and wireless networks
3. Profiles for each wireless network and wired network
4. Many encryption schemes, some of which include WEP/WPA/WPA2
5. Remains compatible with wireless-tools
6. Tray icon showing network activity and signal strength

Actually the .deb package available from the wicd site does have some gnome dependencies (python-gnome2-extras for example) but the overhead is tiny. You could compile it from source and perhaps have no Gnome dependencies at all. Wicd is easy to configure, stores profiles and keys without needing to store them in a keyring, can be set to connect to networks automatically (or not) and will handle your wired connection too. It runs as a daemon and also has a tray icon, if desired, which sits happily in the slit/tray on fluxbox. It works nicely in any Desktop Environment and you'll never again need to resort to the command line to scan, list, or connect to, a wireless network. I'm running the latest Antix upgraded to Debian unstable on my Centrino laptop and wicd makes life easy in both fluxbox and Xfce. As long as your wireless adapter functions in Linux then wicd will use it to give you a much better experience than anything available in Windows. Like the iwlist scan command it will show you all available networks, even hidden ones, and tell you which are encrypted and how.

Wi-fi radar must be uninstalled before installing wicd but there are no other issues. It's recently become the default network manager for Zenwalk 5.0 (a user friendly version of Slackware) and has worked flawlessly for me on various distros, live and installed, based on Debian and Slackware. Desktop users who use a wired connection and/or a single wireless network will have no need of anything beyond the excellent Mepis network assistant but anyone who routinely connects to different wireless networks might find wicd to be a 1st class solution.

Completely agree with you julian67.

I'm thinking of including wicd in the next release of antiX. In fact it almost got in the 7.01 release, but I changed my mind at the last minute.

Welcome to antiX.

thanks for the welcome. Is there any need for a new version of antix? __{{emoticon}}__ I love the whole idea of a rolling release and never needing to burn another iso, re-install, or use an upgrade manager. It's something I'd been looking for (in combination with other factors) for some time.

I came across wicd about a year or 18 months ago when network-manager in Ubuntu was still very badly implemented (I had used nm in opensuse and knew it was a good tool if done properly). Wicd wasn't so great at the time either but it has definitely improved a lot, there seem to be only minor issues with it now, such as the connection info from the tray icon not always being right. But it always connects to the right network which is the main thing.

Hello. I agree with the inclusion of wicd in antix. wlassistant has a lot of dependencies. wifi-radar can be buggy on some systems. wicd looks like the best choice. Plus, I think it can dock (?) in the tray.

john

I've just installed wicd and can't get it to run.
In the terminal i type wicd and get command not found
I looked in /opt/wicd and there are quite a few files. i tried clicking them all but nothing launched. What am i doing wrong __{{emoticon}}__ ?
Thanks.

In /opt/wicd there should be a gui.py file.
Clicking on it should get it to work.

If it doesn't it may mean that you are missing some dependencies.

Try this, in a terminal as root

dpkg -i wicd (give full file name)
apt-get -f install

I tried the dpkg and apt-get lines again (thats how i installed it first time) and then...



I tried /ect/init.d/wicd start which started the deamon but didn't let me run gui.py or tray.py afterwards.

How am i doing?
__{{emoticon}}__

Which antiX and which wicd are you using r3bol?

antiX-M7 Lysistrata (I think, is there a way of checking?)
wicd - wicd_1.4.1-all.deb (from sourceforge).

cat /etc/antiX

to check which antiX.

Strange as I installed the same wicd today and after the apt-get -f install it automatically set up the initd stuff.

What does this give:

cd /opt/wicd
./gui.py

Edit: You could try deleting the wicd folder from /opt and start again

ok, i am using antiX-M7 Lysistrata.

cd /opt/wicd
./gui.py
Gives the same error message as the screen grab above.

tried the delete /opt/wicd suggestion too, but no difference.

Its no biggie. I just wanted to checkout wicd. I can still connect with dhclient __{{emoticon}}__

Edit: and i suspect my kids have messed up my OS in some way because they are always pulling the plug when its on! __{{emoticon}}__ I'll probably just reinstall again.

If I go to the wicd site it suggests adding their repository, which I am willing to do in order to get wicd. However, I'm using antiX 7.0 (?) and I don;t know which ubuntu release I should specify.

Sorry if this was mentioned somewhere above and I missed it.

Thanks!

I used this one from sourceforge:


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url was:"http://downloads.sourceforge.net/wicd/wicd_1.4.2-1-all.deb?modtime=1203246585&big_mirror=0"
linktext was:"http://downloads.sourceforge.net/wicd/w ... g_mirror=0"
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Try their Debian repo: __{{emoticon}}__

I've been using Wicd, and I really like it. As the FAQ says, I run"/opt/wicd/gui.py" to open the main window, and"/opt/wicd/tray.py" to launch the tray icon, which is perfect. I really like the tray icon and I'd like to use it all the time. Unfortunately, I'm new to antiX, and I'm not sure the ideal way to get the tray icon started automatically when I bootup, or login. In Ubuntu there was a settings window where I could add and remove the startup applications and daemons. What is the best way to do this with antiX?