Re: Thoughts on roaming laptop setup for Debian Edu
[Petter Reinholdtsen 2010-07-10]
> * The wicd package is installed (instead of network-manager). Not
> sure if this is a good idea or not, but the report from Extremadura
> made me put it in there as a test.
Based on todays tests, I am starting to suspect it might be better to
use network-manager.
I installed a roaming workstation using PXE in a Debian Edu/Squeeze
network today, and the installation worked fairly well (partition size
issues - updated d-e-install with new sizes). After installation, I can
log in with the first user, and a local home directory is created and
used after I log in for the second time. I can disconnect the network
cable and still log in using cached credentials. All good so far.
But, when I try to connect to the wireless networks around me, wicd do
not see anything. I had to manually configure wicd to use wlan0 as the
wireless interface to be able to see the wireless networks. And when I
try to select the non-encrypted network I want to use, I am unable to
get any IP address.
After removing the wicd package and installing the network-manager-kde
instead to get a KDE panel widget to control network-manager, I am able
to connect to the wireless network.
Anyone want to debug wicd in this setup, or should we just switch to
network-manager on Roaming Workstation profiles? Possible advantages:
- It will discover wireless interfaces without any configuration.
- Roaming Workstation will use network manager the same way Standalone
(and all other profiles?) do it now.
Possible problems
- Roaming Workstation will not work for new users because the network
is not enabled at boot but only after first login, and thus no
connection to LDAP and Kerberos can be made.
The problems I see might be because wicd and network-manager are
confusing each other. I did not have much time to debug.
--
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen
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