After updating to CentOS 5.5 (2.6.18-194.8.1.elPAE) and KDE 3.5.10-1.el Fedora the network control applet is no longer present. If I run GNOME (which is really, really dislike) the NetworkManager applet is accessible and I can set my wireless and other network settings through it with no problem. Before I updated my system I had no trouble doing the same in KDE.

Installing knetworkmanager from RPM has had no effect. While I can install knetworkmanager-0.7-0.8.20080926svn.fc10 (an older fedora version, the latest ones have not worked with CentOS 5.5, which is completely up-to-date as of this morning), launching knetworkmanager has no effect. It shows as running when using the ps command, but there is still no applet to actually interface. I have also tried reinstalling NetworkManager, but to no avail. While this is not a problem if using a hardline, it makes connecting to a wireless connection impossible if I do not know the server details, such as the public servers at my university. I can connect by logging into GNOME first, picking the wireless server to use, and then logging out and into KDE, but this is hardly an acceptable methodology.

I am quite possibly missing something obvious here, but searching the forum boards and google in general have so far not helped me find a solution. What is most perplexing is that the networking applet, which may have been knetworkmanager or something else, I'm not sure since I never had to launch it manually before, was working just fine prior to the update. That suggests the update broke something, but what I do not know. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Try removing ~/.kde/share/config/knetworkmanagerrc

Otherwise, you can use the GNOME applet in KDE, by running "nm-applet" using Alt + F2.

No file named ~/.kde/share/config/knetworkmanagerrc. Running nm-applet gives the following:

[######@localhost config]$ nm-applet

** (nm-applet:7936): WARNING **: <WARN> applet_dbus_manager_start_service(): Could not acquire the NetworkManagerUserSettings service as it is already taken. Return: 3

You will need to close knetworkmanager ( probably by killing it ) in order to allow nm-applet to be used. Can you try using knetworkmanager under a new user?

Looking at the processes running for both root and my user account, knetworkmanager is not running at all. rpm -q returns that it is not installed. I had previously installed the FC10 version on the gamble that it might work, but that returns a NMSettings::NMSettigns message and while it shows the process running, there no applet or interface appears. I subsequently removed it. I have not been able to find if there is a version that is supposed to work with CentOS, found nothing in the CentOS, epl, rpmfourge repositories.

It looks like this isn't a knetworkmanager or other problem, but instead a general failure of applet control in KDE. None of the applets aside from the default KDE ones are working. They all work fine in GNOME, so the applets themselves seem fine, it's something with KDE itself, maybe the applet manager (assuming there is such a specific tool). Unfortunately, because of this I've had to switch to GNOME until this is resolved, I can't stick with KDE when I can't get work done or it takes much longer because none of the applets are working.

Well there you go, doing a control experiment identified the problem. You'd think I'd know well enough to do that by now. A new account worked just fine, turns out that when I upgraded/updated somehow the system tray applet was disabled. When I launched a test account in KDE the applets were present, but in a new panel group - the system tray applet. I missed this while looking before because I was looking for a problem with the individual applets themselves, not the master one (that I did not know about) that controled their display. I still don't know why or how it got disabled during the upgrade, but now I do have it back. The power applet was still missing, but running gnome-power-manager automatically added it. Don't know if that is permanent or not, if it is not I can manually make it so easily enough.

Figures that it is both an easy answer in the end, and that it gets fixed just a day after I finish completely customizing my gnome setup.