[lug] Panera wireless using Fedora

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:28:24 -0600
"Michael J. Hammel" <mjhammel at graphics-muse.org> wrote:

> On Sun, 2009-06-14 at 19:10 -0600, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> > Before looking at all this, I have to ask: why not just use
> > NetworkManager?
> 
> It never worked before (had the same reputation as Pulse Audio 'round
> here), but I'll consider it.  How does one use it?  

Disable network (or change your wireless device with
system-config-network to be 'NetworkManager managed'. 

Then, you should see a nm-applet tool in your system tray on your
desktop. From that you can select a wireless network to join. Once you
select one, NetworkManager knows you have used it before and if it sees
it again, it will automatically try and rejoin it. You can remove a
network from this by right clicking on nm-applet and editing the
connection. Just remove it's settings. 

You can also set per network/ESSID settings... like perhaps you want to
override the dns server panera gives you by default. 

> I know how to
> configure wireless at home using the UIs mentioned prevously.  How do
> I use NetworkManager to configure a hot spot?  Same way?  Do I just
> add another wireless device to get to the hotspot?  Exactly how do I
> configure the hotspot?  With a Mac, it shows me a bunch of cells.  I
> have no info like that with any of the gnome UIs, so I'm back to
> iwlist scan.  What am I looking for in the output to iwlist scan in
> order to configure using NetworkManager?

Once you enable NetworkManager, nm-applet automatically runs and
appears in your system tray. In there is a list of scanned networks. 

> Of course, I'd like to know what NetworkManager is doing that can't be
> done with iwconfig.  Have the backend configuration tools changed?  Is
> NetworkManager tied into a bunch of ioctls or something that
> circumvents use of the command line tools?  If I gotta use iwlist
> scan to find the hot spots, I might as well just skip the nice UIs
> and do stuff with scripts anyway.

It uses iwconfig and such, and wpa_supplicant, and dhclient and other
tools. It's just IMHO not worth re-inventing the wheel when it already
manages those for you. 

> BTW, the main difference I see between "network" and NetworkManager
> seemed to be that the latter would not let me activate a device
> manually using the UIs.  So how does one turn them on and off?  I use
> both wired and wireless at home so I'd need to know this to switch
> back and forth. I'll look for your script. Maybe that will give me
> some clues.

Right click on nm-applet and you can enable/disable wired/wireless. 
Left click and you can join a wireless network, enable/disable an
evdo/cdma device or wired connection. 

Give it a try. ;) 

> Thanks Kevin.

kevin
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