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Post subject: users of wpa-roam/wpa_gui - request for comment
 Posted: Sep 25, 2008 - 10:32 PM
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Joined: Dec 19, 2006
Posts: 1030
Status: Offline
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Anybody have comments on the new features of wpa_gui ? (version ~ 0.6.4-3).
I am hoping it is a bit more user friendly now, and would like to know if there are any buggy behaviours observed. |
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Post subject: users of wpa-roam/wpa_gui - request for comment
Posted: Sep 25, 2008 - 11:10 PM
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Joined: Nov 30, 2006
Posts: 3478
Location: Budapest
Status: Offline
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Being an afficionado of wpa-roaming and wpa-gui anyway, a few comments:
I very like being an icon in the tray. This gives the information I need and I can kick knemo out of the tray which gave me basic informations but was wrong on a few things, like it never recognized WPA encrypted connections as being encrypted. So goodbye knemo. And it has all the features which I can think of at the moment.
A bit inconvenient is the fact that the status window pops up when the main window of wpa-gui is closed, and one has to click it away. It might be better not popping up or disappearing with a timout of five seconds or so.
It also would be nice if the status window pops up when the mouse hovers over the tray icon (well, I am used to that from knemo, esp. when I want to ssh and forgot the IP address of the box).
Maybe an older thing about the gui. When opening the scan window it goes straight over the main window, and one has to pull away the window to have both available. If it is possible to place the windows side by side (esp. when I open a connection to add it to the list of networks then I have the three windows of wpagui right over each other).
Overall: great new features, the rest is cosmetics, I suppose. The downside is: I cannot code, so I absolutely cannot provide any useful help, just suggestions as a heavy user of wpagui and wpa-roaming.
And I want to use this posting to say thank you for all your effort for wpasupplicant and wpagui. It is simply great stuff.
hubi |
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Bonitas stultitiaque sodales sunt.
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Post subject: Re: users of wpa-roam/wpa_gui - request for comment
Posted: Sep 25, 2008 - 11:22 PM
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Joined: Dec 19, 2006
Posts: 1030
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hubi wrote:
Being an afficionado of wpa-roaming and wpa-gui anyway, a few comments:
I very like being an icon in the tray. This gives the information I need and I can kick knemo out of the tray which gave me basic informations but was wrong on a few things, like it never recognized WPA encrypted connections as being encrypted. So goodbye knemo. And it has all the features which I can think of at the moment.
A bit inconvenient is the fact that the status window pops up when the main window of wpa-gui is closed, and one has to click it away. It might be better not popping up or disappearing with a timout of five seconds or so.
It times out after 10 seconds, but alas, you were not the first person to dislike this behaviour:
http://lists.shmoo.com/pipermail/hostap ... 18479.html
The latest wpagui package should behave better, you must have the version from yesterday installed.
hubi wrote:
It also would be nice if the status window pops up when the mouse hovers over the tray icon (well, I am used to that from knemo, esp. when I want to ssh and forgot the IP address of the box).
Yeah, that'd be great, but unfortunately I do not think the qt4 system tray stuff supports the "mouse hover" trigger (yet). For now status bubbles can be forced with a middle click on the icon.
hubi wrote:
Maybe an older thing about the gui. When opening the scan window it goes straight over the main window, and one has to pull away the window to have both available. If it is possible to place the windows side by side (esp. when I open a connection to add it to the list of networks then I have the three windows of wpagui right over each other).
Overall: great new features, the rest is cosmetics, I suppose. The downside is: I cannot code, so I absolutely cannot provide any useful help, just suggestions as a heavy user of wpagui and wpa-roaming.
And I want to use this posting to say thank you for all your effort for wpasupplicant and wpagui. It is simply great stuff.
hubi
Thanks for comments hubi, very appreciated. |
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Post subject: Re: users of wpa-roam/wpa_gui - request for comment
Posted: Sep 25, 2008 - 11:48 PM
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Joined: Nov 30, 2006
Posts: 3478
Location: Budapest
Status: Offline
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Ah yeah, I have upgraded now. It is 0.6.4-3+c0.sidux.1 and the status popup is gone, and the one after the first opening times out faster as well (almost too fast now if one wants to read it).
Also: I did not wait for 10 seconds, the status pop up after right clicking times out after 10 seconds which seems to be fine, because one wants to read infos when clicking on it.
I think the tray behaviour is very fine now, and usually it takes a few minutes to be used to it. Nothing disturbing now, all important things are there.
The lovely thing is that the gui is really just a helper to set up wpa-roaming. After that everything is done automatically or it is just a click on one preferred network. But if priorities are properly set, one is automatically connected to the preferred network: at home, at your favourite café, at your favourite restaurant, at your favourite pub. And you forget the gui 
And thank you for all your expert help behind the scenes to get my little wiki and manual chapters about using wpagui straight. About two years ago or so over at kanotix slh was the first who mentioned wpa-roaming as a method, but then it was all learning and writing stanzas into wpa_supplicant.conf which were cryptical to me at that time. And now? wpa-roaming is just a few clicks away. I really love that, because it is the best method I know on any system, and it evolves in a very good way without losing any of it's big advantages.
For a laptop user (like me): your packages are essential and a big asset.
hubi |
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Bonitas stultitiaque sodales sunt.
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Post subject: RE: Re: users of wpa-roam/wpa_gui - request for comment
Posted: Oct 01, 2008 - 01:59 AM
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Joined: Dec 19, 2006
Posts: 1030
Status: Offline
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Found a pretty bad bug: KDE would not be able to logout if the main window is open, but it would take away the tray icon leaving a wpa_gui process without any nice way to close it.
Added ability to start app directly in system tray, and made it default behaviour when starting from KDE menu.
These new developments will make it into archive soonish. |
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 17, 2008 - 06:34 PM
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Joined: Jan 25, 2007
Posts: 13
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I have followed the WPA_gui setup in the sidux Manual and wireless is working as is should. It is more convenient for roaming than Ceni. I like the current style and useability.
However, I have an issue/request. My T40 Thinkpad normally sits on a desk and is plugged into an ethernet port. When roaming around the house or away from the house WPA_gui/wpa-roam is great for wireless. Under normal use every time I boot up to use it I have to issue a ifdown for ath0 as otherwise it sits there blinking, trying to connect to the house wireless connection when it is already connected to the wired port.
I've set the preference for wireless home and wireless roam as suggested and this works fine. Is it possible to set a preference for the wired connection to prevent the situation noted above?
Admittedly, this is not a big thing, but if there are suggestions I'd be happy to try them and report back. |
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 17, 2008 - 07:21 PM
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Joined: Dec 19, 2006
Posts: 1030
Status: Offline
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This should be handled if/when using ifplugd to manage wired ethernet instead of 'auto' or 'allow-hotplug' modes which are static. Some new work in the wpasupplicant and ifplugd packages allows the two packages to compliment each other, I just need to hook Ceni up to make use of it.
Try removing 'auto eth0' or 'allow-hotplug eth0' (replace eth0 with your wired interface name) from /etc/network/interfaces, and 'dpkg-reconfigure ifplugd' to add the interface name to hotplug interfaces when prompted. This hasn;t yet been thoroughly tested though, its a slow work in progress. |
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 18, 2008 - 10:48 PM
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Joined: Apr 07, 2007
Posts: 384
Location: Italia
Status: Offline
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I'm very interested about this feature too.... even for my desktop, which normally goes wireless but is sometimes "offiscated" by the power of some rogue antenna nearby....
So basically, I'd like it to hook up at boot with eth0 if cable is plugged or to ath0 if cable is unplugged.... but at the moment "allow-hotplug eth0" doesn't really help |
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SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLVM
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AC MILAN CaMpIoNe d'EuRoPa 2oo7!!!!
AC MILAN WoRLd ChAmPiOn 2oo7!!!!
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 19, 2008 - 12:36 AM
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Joined: Nov 30, 2006
Posts: 3478
Location: Budapest
Status: Offline
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kelmo wrote:
Try removing 'auto eth0' or 'allow-hotplug eth0' (replace eth0 with your wired interface name) from /etc/network/interfaces, and 'dpkg-reconfigure ifplugd' to add the interface name to hotplug interfaces when prompted.
Well, I tried that, even rebooted to have a clean first start, but: nothing happened. wpa-gui gave me that it could not get the status of wpa_supplicant.conf.
I had "auto" and "all" as magic entries, and I tried the names of the network devices. It just did not do anything. But I did not dig deeper into it, it is not an urgent feature (I am more concerned that WLAN speed behaves like the stock market since 2.6.26: decreasing to a tenth of it's value).
So I am back to "allow-hotplug [device]" which instantly connects me to my wlan or any free or defined wlan immediatly after booting into the laptop. It works after suspend/resume, I do not need hotswitching between wired and wireless LAN. If I need it, ifupdown does the job.
hubi |
_________________
Bonitas stultitiaque sodales sunt.
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 19, 2008 - 09:14 AM
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Joined: Nov 30, 2006
Posts: 3478
Location: Budapest
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Caveat with ifplugd:
Yesterday I played around and put it into the init.d sequences but it did not work (see last post), so I disabled it again. This morning automatic roaming was gone: no network after booting, losing network when changing runlevels. allow-hotplug was totally gone, so to say. Easiest solution was purging ifplugd. Everything back to normal (network right after boot, not losing network connection when changing runlevels).
ifplugd seems to me very experimental and not easy to understand, and testing it, one has to know how to revert to a working wpa-roaming using allow-hotplug.
hubi |
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Bonitas stultitiaque sodales sunt.
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 19, 2008 - 03:30 PM
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Joined: Dec 19, 2006
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hubi wrote:
Caveat with ifplugd:
Yesterday I played around and put it into the init.d sequences but it did not work (see last post), so I disabled it again. This morning automatic roaming was gone: no network after booting, losing network when changing runlevels. allow-hotplug was totally gone, so to say. Easiest solution was purging ifplugd. Everything back to normal (network right after boot, not losing network connection when changing runlevels).
ifplugd seems to me very experimental and not easy to understand, and testing it, one has to know how to revert to a working wpa-roaming using allow-hotplug.
hubi
Note in my post I didn't say you should modify your wireless interface configuration to use ifplugd. Maybe you misunderstood me.
Anyways, I won't be giving instructions anymore about this, until it can be hooked up with Ceni where I can be sure the only errors are program errors and not human ones  |
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 20, 2008 - 12:14 AM
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Joined: Nov 30, 2006
Posts: 3478
Location: Budapest
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Switch to ifplugd:
- removing "allow-hotplug" lines in /etc/network/interfaces
- configuring ifplugd
- setting boot time activation
- reboot
Reverting to wpa-roaming "classic":
- disabling ifplugd at boottime
- writing back the backuped interfaces with "allow-hotplug" lines for roaming
- reboot
That's what I did. Maybe I forgot something else, but ifplugd was not running, I checked that.
Anyway, it works again.
hubi |
_________________
Bonitas stultitiaque sodales sunt.
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 20, 2008 - 09:51 AM
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Joined: Dec 19, 2006
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hubi wrote:
Switch to ifplugd:
- removing "allow-hotplug" lines in /etc/network/interfaces
- configuring ifplugd
- setting boot time activation
- reboot
Reverting to wpa-roaming "classic":
- disabling ifplugd at boottime
- writing back the backuped interfaces with "allow-hotplug" lines for roaming
- reboot
That's what I did. Maybe I forgot something else, but ifplugd was not running, I checked that.
Anyway, it works again.
hubi
This was to be done for the _wired_ _ethernet_ interface only, and nothing to do with wpa-roam managed interface was to be changed ...
Either way, this is now a diverging /topic, and should probably be discussed somewhere else. |
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 20, 2008 - 10:02 AM
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Joined: Nov 30, 2006
Posts: 3478
Location: Budapest
Status: Offline
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Thank you, kelmo! That was my mistake, apart from not really having read into ifplugd. There is a thread about hotplugging here.
On topic wpa-gui:
My KDE settings are that all programs which were running are fired up during relogin (eg. after reboot). I have the wpa-gui icon in the tray (no window open), but when I relogin a window is open. Is there a possibility that just the tray icon is there and the window closed?
Thank you,
hubi |
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Bonitas stultitiaque sodales sunt.
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 20, 2008 - 10:13 AM
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Joined: Dec 19, 2006
Posts: 1030
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hubi wrote:
Thank you, kelmo! That was my mistake, apart from not really having read into ifplugd. There is a thread about hotplugging here.
Just let me clarify: ifplugd is not about 'hotplugging' anything really, the subtopic here concerned the disabling of wireless and activation of wired networking when a cable was plugged in, and vice versa when cable unplugged.
hubi wrote:
On topic wpa-gui:
My KDE settings are that all programs which were running are fired up during relogin (eg. after reboot). I have the wpa-gui icon in the tray (no window open), but when I relogin a window is open. Is there a possibility that just the tray icon is there and the window closed?
No, not unless you write a custom startup script which uses the -t wpa_cli command line option, or drop the defalt .desktop file into some autostart folder instead of using session managemant. KDE session management doesn't remember command line arguments it seems...
Reason: for a long time wpa_cli never had tray icon support, if suddenly it would open only in the tray by default old users may be very confused.
So in the Debian package I can do two things:
* patch the upstream source to change the default (not chosen)
* have the desktop start wpa_cli with -t, start in try only, option, and hope the session manager is smart enough to pick that up (chosen)
I don't really want to carry along the patch to change defaults at this time for an aesthetic issue. |
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