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masinick
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Location: Concord, NH
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 Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2024 8:26 pm Post subject: sidux has ceni, a great wired and wireless networking tool |
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Hey, if you are struggling to set up wireless on your laptop, look no further than the ceni network interface configuration tool. I installed sidux on my laptop today and I was struggling around with setting up wireless, so I decided to read the sidux web site for suggestions. Right in the middle of their manual they have specific suggestions for getting various network cards working, then they highlight ceni, which they claimed is one of the easiest network device management tools around. After using it, I agree.
Yet another reason for using sidux: we have siduxcc, the sidux metapackage installer, smxi, and now ceni.
sidux, to me is not only the Libranet replacement, it is more modern and does an even better job! Too bad Libranet is not still around, what a 1-2 Debian punch! Great software, yet easy to set up and use! |
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tlmiller
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2024 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah, I played around with Ceni, but for me, I still prefer running network-manager with knetworkmanager frontend.
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Debian Squeeze, Arch, Kubuntu mostly. Some Mandriva. Some Windows.
Desktops: shadowdragon, medusa
Laptops: bluedrake, banelord, sandwyrm, aardvark.
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masinick
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 1:00 am Post subject: Ceni was faster for me in this case |
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| tlmiller wrote: | | Yeah, I played around with Ceni, but for me, I still prefer running network-manager with knetworkmanager frontend. |
I'm mostly using this system at home, so I don't change it that often. For now, Ceni does the job real well. knetworkmanager is good when you are on the go. For some reason, I was having issues running it as an ordinary user. I'm sure I'd find what setting (probably access permissions) that was incorrect, but I was able to get Ceni going immediately, so for now I am sticking with it.
I have to say that right out of the box, MEPIS and PCLinuxOS are two of the best I've tried so far as far as really quickly configuring the wireless. PCLinuxOS asks you about it right during startup, which means if you get it right, you are online immediately. MEPIS has a tool that is nearly as easy. I'd say PCLinuxOS wins that one by a hair.
With sidux, having multiple methods for setting up wireless and very good manual information for setting up a wide variety of wireless devices, plus good pointers on getting the network started up, sidux is one of the very best in documentation.
Arch has a lot of information, too, but I think they are caught in between approaches. I found their documentation a bit confusing as a result, but ultimately it also had everything I needed to successfully set up Arch wireless. Soon Arch will have that ironed out, as they are migrating to a different approach.
Have not tried all of the mainstream distros with wireless so I cannot be sure who can do what. I do know that SUSE has a pretty good reputation for device support; they were one of the early ones to have better than average laptop support. Red Hat didn't really focus on desktops that much until the Fedora project helped that cause; now they are a leader, but I haven't personally verified their wireless capabilities. Ubuntu has a lot of documentation on wireless, and just by browsing their forums I can see that huge progress has been made on wireless over the past three years. |
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tlmiller
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 1:10 am Post subject: |
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[disclaimer]The following statement is based on Fedora 7 since it worked stable enough to use for any extended period of time[/disclaimer]
Fedora wireless kinda blows. Actually, let me rephrase that. It outright blows. Worst wireless management of all the major (and most of the minor) distros I've ever used. Was the one major thing I never totally got straight with Fedora.
I actually hate how PCLOS handles networking at all. Reason I keep liking it less and less. The fact that it hides EVERYTHING. They don't even, by default, have icons to SHOW if you're connected. You just have to try it to know. Not a fan of the blind faith methodology.
Yeah, Mepis is sweet. Another of the reasons PCLOS is probably going bye-bye in exchange for Mepis antiX.
Maybe it's just because I'm not right in the head, but I actually found the Arch documentation to be completely sensible.  But I can see where others who have more logical approaches to thinking may have issues.
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Debian Squeeze, Arch, Kubuntu mostly. Some Mandriva. Some Windows.
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masinick
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 1:44 am Post subject: Arch documentation is good |
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On the Arch documentation, it may have been where I started reading. I find their documentation in general to be excellent. I found comments in the forums to suggest that some of the documentation in the wireless space is undergoing changes, so I definitely give them the benefit of the doubt on that point.
I am not surprised at all that Fedora wireless support is substandard. As I commented elsewhere, Red Hat has long focused on servers. Though the community has done a good job with Fedora on the whole and has helped Red Hat in that way to catch up a bit on the desktop, when it comes to desktop devices, I am not at all surprised that they come up lacking. I am sure that is an area that will be improving, if it hasn't already done so.
I agree about MEPIS. I keep MEPIS around as my basic system, so in the event that I toast one of my experimental distros (like sidux and Arch) I have something stable to fall back on. The only stuff I do with MEPIS is add additional packages to suit my style and interests. With sidux, I do all kinds of crazy stuff and try to break it. It has held up very well indeed. (Mind you, if I TRULY wanted to break it I could. I have worked many years as a QA engineer in addition to tours as a software engineer, systems engineer, systems administrator, and product support specialist before getting into project management. Yeah, I think I could slice and dice it up pretty good. As it is, I just do totally unsupported, unrecommended things and see how far I can go with them. So far, quite far!)  |
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jada
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 2:39 am Post subject: Re: sidux has ceni, a great wired and wireless networking to |
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| masinick wrote: |
Yet another reason for using sidux: we have siduxcc, the sidux metapackage installer, smxi, and now ceni.
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well, guys sidux has really alot. But why thet said on there website
" Currently we recommend to not update the kernel through smxi" http://www.sidux.com/Article398.html
guys, please come back if you have something what really works, and not promote something what only mess up your system and doesn't work |
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masinick
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 3:00 am Post subject: |
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I installed a brand new instance of sidux only this morning and it did not mess up anything. The procedure is quite careful to NOT mess up the system. I DID run smxi just today and it did not attempt to install something that could potentially cause issues. This is a good system. It has bleeding edge software on it, yet it is configured in such a way that issues and errors are minimized. I sure would not be running it if it messed up my system. The fact is that it helps keep Debian Sid from messing up my system. Nothing is perfect, and some day I may run into an issue; have not so far. Ironically enough, I ran into an issue with our friendly Arch. That does not mean that Arch is messed up, it means that there is a defect that will, more than likely, be fixed very soon. Same with sidux. It is not defect free but it is cutting edge and issues are quite rapidly fixed.
Jada, I think this soap box has gone on long enough. Both Arch and sidux are fine distros. It is obvious that you love Arch, but it is also obvious that you have a problem with Debian in general and sidux in particular. We all get that. Please don't veer off the topic. We were discussing wireless networking tools, not smxi - except in passing. The topic here is wireless setup. If you have some constructive suggestions about useful wireless tools, I am all ears about that, but I don't want to hear any more about the gripes you have about sidux. We already know them. |
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richard
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 8:29 am Post subject: |
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| I have to say that anything that helps configure wireless is a bonus as its one of the main problems I have had with Linux over the years. PCLOS is one of only 2 Linux distro's, the other is openSUSE, that have let me configure wireless successfully. You never know it might just be enough to let me have a go at installing sidux at some point. If Arch had something similar then I would even have a look at that as well.
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masinick
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 12:50 pm Post subject: |
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| richard wrote: | | I have to say that anything that helps configure wireless is a bonus as its one of the main problems I have had with Linux over the years. PCLOS is one of only 2 Linux distro's, the other is openSUSE, that have let me configure wireless successfully. You never know it might just be enough to let me have a go at installing sidux at some point. If Arch had something similar then I would even have a look at that as well. |
PCLlinuxOS is one of the easiest to deal with wireless. SimplyMEPIS and its lightweight derivative, AntiX, are also very good. A few weekends ago I did some experimentation with Mandriva, and found that MCNLive "Toronto", a Live CD respin of Mandriva, is just as easy, even Live, if not easier, than the base Mandriva.
sidux does not come immediately installed with all wireless support, but it has a great web site that very quickly and easily shows you how to set up wireless. All it takes is to either install the correct firmware driver for your hardware (usually one command), then run a utility called ceni to set it up, and that utility is quite easy to use. So sidux is not automatic like PCLinuxOS. Instead, you install the specific stuff you need in 2-3 easy steps.
Arch is the same way. It comes with no support at all for wireless on the ISO image CD, but it does also have complete documentation on the Wiki and an active forum, where you can quickly find out how to set up your device. It is a bit harder for a novice, but someone who can go through their site and follow directions won't have any problems setting it up.
As far as getting into Arch or sidux, let me just say that they are both good learning tools. With sidux you can learn how to easily keep your system up to date, but it does have plenty of tools to make that effort easier. With Arch, you learn how to install and set up a system exactly the way you want it. I find Arch just a step away from some of the do it from scratch systems, but compared to the source based systems, much quicker to set up, and extremely easy to maintain once initially set up. Arch is a binary distribution, it has a very good community behind it with decent documentation and an active forum.
You'll find that the good source based systems - which are much more involved to set up, do also generally have very good documentation and are an excellent way to really learn the insides of a system, including how to build wireless support. Unless it is your every day profession, you are a student and it is the object of your studies, or you otherwise happen to have a fair amount of free time to learn and experiment, the source based systems are simply too time consuming, but they can be extremely rewarding in other ways. That is why most of us steer away from them, but they can be outstanding. Because of my own limited time, I have not worked with source based distributions in several years except to check out starter kits. |
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jada
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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| richard wrote: | | If Arch had something similar then I would even have a look at that as well. |
well I am running Archlinux with the madwifi driver for Atheros Cards. I just follow the wiki, http://wiki.archlinux.org//Wireless_Setup and use the http://wiki.archlinux.org//NetworkManager. It have take maybe ~45 minutes because I don't count, my wireless was working with WPE, WPA, WPA2 keys. I use WPA2 and my neigbour are using just WEP. Just one click, enter the key and I am on 
I personal prefer a good HowTo and WIKI. I don't like to depend on some third part aopplications how "does the job" |
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richard
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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| masinick wrote: | | PCLlinuxOS is one of the easiest to deal with wireless. SimplyMEPIS and its lightweight derivative, AntiX, are also very good. A few weekends ago I did some experimentation with Mandriva, and found that MCNLive "Toronto", a Live CD respin of Mandriva, is just as easy, even Live, if not easier, than the base Mandriva. |
I have never had any luck with SimplyMEPIS and wireless even though I can get it the wireless configured but when I come to connect to access point it refuses even if I turn off the encryption. As for Mandriva it would not even install the wireless card as it requires proprietary drivers, for the record my laptop has the Intel Pro 2200BG. I did try and install them following the instructions given but I could not get it to work.
| masinick wrote: | sidux does not come immediately installed with all wireless support, but it has a great web site that very quickly and easily shows you how to set up wireless. All it takes is to either install the correct firmware driver for your hardware (usually one command), then run a utility called ceni to set it up, and that utility is quite easy to use. So sidux is not automatic like PCLinuxOS. Instead, you install the specific stuff you need in 2-3 easy steps.
Arch is the same way. It comes with no support at all for wireless on the ISO image CD, but it does also have complete documentation on the Wiki and an active forum, where you can quickly find out how to set up your device. It is a bit harder for a novice, but someone who can go through their site and follow directions won't have any problems setting it up. |
I will have a look at the documentation for both, I may not be the worlds best Linux user but I should be able to get things sorted out eventually. Wireless support is probably the most important thing for me as I only have my laptop these days after that it has to be reliability as I don't want to be constantly fixing things. These are the 2 main reasons I like distro's like openSUSE and PCLOS.
| masinick wrote: | As far as getting into Arch or sidux, let me just say that they are both good learning tools. With sidux you can learn how to easily keep your system up to date, but it does have plenty of tools to make that effort easier. With Arch, you learn how to install and set up a system exactly the way you want it. I find Arch just a step away from some of the do it from scratch systems, but compared to the source based systems, much quicker to set up, and extremely easy to maintain once initially set up. Arch is a binary distribution, it has a very good community behind it with decent documentation and an active forum.
You'll find that the good source based systems - which are much more involved to set up, do also generally have very good documentation and are an excellent way to really learn the insides of a system, including how to build wireless support. Unless it is your every day profession, you are a student and it is the object of your studies, or you otherwise happen to have a fair amount of free time to learn and experiment, the source based systems are simply too time consuming, but they can be extremely rewarding in other ways. That is why most of us steer away from them, but they can be outstanding. Because of my own limited time, I have not worked with source based distributions in several years except to check out starter kits. |
I don't have a problem with spending time configuring a system from scratch if I don't have to constantly spend time tweaking the system afterwards. I may a lot of free time nowadays but I want to spend the time constructively not playing around with the innards of the system keeping things working. I have had a look at the Arch documentation and it is very good and it would expand my knowledge of Linux a great deal. The only other main drawback for me regarding distro's like sidux and Arch is that I have only got a 5 gig/month download limit so I'm limited as to what I can download. Distro's like openSuse and PCLOS provide most of the software I need at installation without having to download a whole load of packages. This doesn't rule out sidux or Arch but it does mean I have to be careful I have to make sure I get a lot a things sorted with the smallest amount of downloads.
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masinick
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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Richard, I have the same card as you do and I have been able to run wireless on the following software without any problems at all: Arch Linux, sidux, SimplyMEPIS 7.0, AntiX 7.0 (MEPIS iite derivative), Mandriva One 2024..0, MCNLive (MandrivaClub.NL), PCLinuxOS, and Windows XP. I use WPA authentication. Some lightweight live CDs have not offered WPA so my connection won't work on them, but all of these were able to get set up quite easily, and all but Arch, sidux, and Windows XP were accessed on wireless straight from a Live CD.
Given your bandwidth constraints, you are probably best off where you are now, but when you can squeeze in some bandwidth and a few hours spare time, both Arch and sidux are well worth a look, and both definitely support that wireless hardware. |
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tlmiller
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2024 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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| I also have used that wireless chipset in the past, and can also connect using Puppy and Linux Mint to add to Masinicks list.
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richard
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jada
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2024 12:25 am Post subject: |
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| masinick wrote: |
Arch is the same way. It comes with no support at all for wireless on the ISO image CD, but it does also have complete documentation on the Wiki and an active forum, where you can quickly find out how to set up your device. It is a bit harder for a novice, but someone who can go through their site and follow directions won't have any problems setting it up.
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what are you talking about? 
Arch has complett support for all wireless devise. All wireless drivers are on the core (base) installation CD. You don't have to download them, compile them, they are all there.
The new 2024.2 how will be ready soon, it will get also the latest MadWifi 0.9.4 drivers and all another latest stable builds. |
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