I have already posted something about this in the relevant forum for Kubuntu 9.04 beta testing, but have some additional questions that are more related to KDE.

First, a short sum up of my problem:

Until two days ago, my wireless network kinda worked. I was able to connect, but could never get it to set the settings I wanted it to have. So I lived with the DHCP settings. But after the latest update, wireless is not working and I was forced on wired network. Turns out I am not able to set anything for it and have to live with the DHCP settings.

1. How is the network settings supposed to work? I have gone to System Settings>Network Settings>Network Management and added a connection in both the wired and wireless section. In the wired section I have set everything manual, but this setting do not get used. Only DHCP. In the wireless, I chose DHCP with manual DNS, but when it was working, it never picked up on this, just created a new setting with DHCP.

2. The whole network management part feels very unfinished. I have been recommended this instead:

http://wicd.sourceforge.net/

This seems like a very complete package with all the things that seems to be missing from KDE... Any chance of adapting all the functions from this package over in KDE?

I have discovered a lot of things I REALLY like in KDE, but network management has me quite puzzled for now.

Anyone out there willing to shed some bright light on this confused soul?

A Solid Wicd backend is currently in KDE Review, which will hopefully be moved in for KDE 4.3.
Hopefully Network Management ( KDE 4 version of KNetworkManager ) will remove its NetworkManager dependency so it can be used with alternate backends.

bcooksley wrote:A Solid Wicd backend is currently in KDE Review, which will hopefully be moved in for KDE 4.3.
Hopefully Network Management ( KDE 4 version of KNetworkManager ) will remove its NetworkManager dependency so it can be used with alternate backends.

Sounds like good news I am really happy with KDE on my laptop (Dell XPS M1210) except for a few things, and messages like this give me the hope that it will be resolved in the future

What is your recommendation in the meantime? Should I install Wicd? If so, how do I disable the KNetworkManager or just keep it from interfering?

I installed Wicd, and it is really light on memory, using only Gtk, so no GNOME libraries get loaded. I also disabled KNetworkManager, it just caused problems for me. Wicd is definitely recommended.

bcooksley wrote:I installed Wicd, and it is really light on memory, using only Gtk, so no GNOME libraries get loaded. I also disabled KNetworkManager, it just caused problems for me. Wicd is definitely recommended.

Done. Thanks, things are now just working. Set and forget. I love when things are like that.