Anybody use WICD for wireless networking?

[Jayce]

So, here I am - messin around in Kubuntu and, just like Ubuntu, the network manager is starting to bug me. Sure, it does it's job and most people could probably live with it, but overall it just didn't seem as tight-knit as I had hoped.

The big problem I had with it was for 1 connection, I had 2 bars of signal strength and I had no idea what was what. So I asked in the Kubuntu IRC chat and the one guy recommended WICD - a familiar program on the forums.

So, I check it out, install it (which auto installs WICD + uninstalls Network Manager) and presto chango - I was online. At first I didn't have a tray icon, but I rebooted and there it was. Okay, fine.

So far I have nothing but good things to say about it. It's relatively easy to use and has a better layout than the default network managers I've used. Granted, if what you're using works fine, maybe it's not in the cards to check it out. But it's worth it if you're curious.

Just keep in mind - installing WICD seems to auto uninstall network manager, which is nice, but you'll have to reinstall network manager if you wish to use it again.

Anybody using this gizmo?

 

[farinha]

I'm using in my netbook with ubuntu 8.04. I couldn't get the network manager working with wep encryption, have no idea why, and I found wicd and it worked pretty well.

 

[Jayce]

I'm using in my netbook with ubuntu 8.04. I couldn't get the network manager working with wep encryption, have no idea why, and I found wicd and it worked pretty well.

Yeah, network manager can be finicky. Another +1 for WICD is it doesn't install a load of dependencies. It's just... it's own package. Pretty neato. Fully open source, available on sourceforge + *buntu repos.

I don't see it as a real necessity for my desktop, though, since it just sits there wired all day and network manager is fine for that. But I'm glad I tried it out on my laptop.

 

[Jayce]

Here I am, eating my own words. I was having some issues with WICD that kind of got to me. It was connecting/dropping/re-connecting, etc, a lot. So I decided to go back to the regular network manager that comes by default with Kubuntu and I haven't had any issues since, but it also hasn't been that long.

I'll edit this post whenever I get more direct findings on their performance, but I talked to some people who use the default network manager because WICD had problems, and then vice versa.

It's kind of like in Windows when you get a new Dell and it has that wireless program tied in with it to manage your wifi networks, and even though it looks cooler than the regular one you find in XP you're not sure which one to use? That's kind of where I'm at.

 

[Brinson]

I use WICd, but its try functionality is way worse than network manager, but its way easier to use and doesn't pull in gnome dependencies.