the new Gnome netapplet

rabbit · Posted: Wed May 04, 2005 9:38 pm Post subject:

It's an applet you add to your panel (right click on your panel, then add applet [though I'm not positive that's how it works in XFCE]). I'm pretty sure it's still called "notification area" in XFCE (though it's been awhile since I've used xfce). The XFCE documentation (http://www.xfce.org/index.php?page=overview&lang=en#features) calls it that at least.

rt_clik · Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 5:52 am Post subject:

You rock! Thanks. A little trouble getting the Systemtray item to hook to the panel, but found a reference that indicated the Systemtray must be disabled in the Taskbar before it will work in the Panel. Fixed that, launched netapplet, and I'm set.

Nice tool!

sog · Guru Joined: 04 Apr 2004 Posts: 356

in Gnome, right click your panel, select "Add to Panel", and then select Notification Area.

that'll drop in a notification area on your panel for you, in which NetApplet should show up.

HTH.
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rt_clik · Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 7:32 pm Post subject:

Using xfce4, not Gnome, but thanks. Issue resolved as indicated in my last post.

Thanks.

rt_clik · Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 3:10 am Post subject: A new oddity

I'm using madwifi-driver-0.1_pre20050420 and netapplet-1.0.0-r6. Everything works, but I began to notice heavy packet loss (up around 20% over thousands of pings) after loading netapplet. It's like the driver stops passing traffic for several seconds, then resumes. Very annoying when working with remote systems over a VPN. If I kill netapplet, the symptom goes away.

Anyone have any thoughts? Is it likely this is resolved in version r7 of netapplet, or is it more likely that this is a driver issue? There is a daily CVS for the madwifi-drivers, so I can check that later.

Thanks.

rt_clik · Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 6:42 am Post subject: Data

Spent a bit more time on this tonight. Grabbed the very latest CVS snapshot tarball of the madwifi-drivers, compiled, and got them running against my 2.6.11-gentoo-r6 kernel. Then ran some ping tests and found the following:

-----------------------------------------------
netdaemon and netapplet both loaded
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33% loss 50 packets
32% loss 50 packets
36% loss 50 packets

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netdaemon and netapplet both unloaded
-----------------------------------------------

0% loss 50 packets
0% loss 50 packets
0% loss 50 packets

-----------------------------------------------
netdaemon reloaded
-----------------------------------------------

0% loss 50 packets

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netapplet reloaded
-----------------------------------------------

26% loss 50 packets

======================================

It looks like the wifi scanning for networks is costing me around 30%. With only 50 packets, and consistent results, it looks like the network polling going on in the background while netapplet is running is a bit excessive. I understand why it is necessary, but is there a way to tune the interval?

I love the tool, but not enough to deal with this kind of network interruption.

fergus · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 99

rt

I can see about adding a command line option to override the poll rate or try and fix the problem if it is fixable. Just to get this straight, it looks like you only get the packet loss when you have the applet loaded, not just the daemon. Check back here in a few days to see if I have posted anything new...

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fergus

ttuttle · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 03 Oct 2004 Posts: 131

Here is how it has worked for me.

0.98.0-r5 will build, but it doesn't recognize my ipw2200 as a wireless card, and shows "unknown".
1.0.0 and 1.0.0-r1 both give me an error message ("*** glibc detected *** double free or corruption (out): 0x08050b8e ***") when running netapplet. Please tell me what options I need to give to turn that hex into a line of code you can pinpoint.

Also, netdaemon silently fails if not running as root.

Oh, and it turns out if you rebuild wireless-tools you have to rebuild netapplet. ;-)

rt_clik · Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 3:11 am Post subject:

Fergus,

You have the scenario correct. I see the problem with netapplet loaded. Netdaemon running without netapplet does not exhibit the symptom.

Thanks.

rabbit · Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 12:27 am Post subject:

rabbit · Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 12:30 am Post subject:

rt_clik · Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 2:41 am Post subject:

rabbit,

I'm using wireless-tools-27. I guess I could go to 28_pre6 if I need to, but did not thnk it was necessary to get this running right. I agree that it is likely bad driver foo, as the driver doesn't handle scanning quite right upon boot (to automatically select networks based on preferences) either. For example:

kaksi · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 125

Netapplet 1.0.8 is out...

rabbit · Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 1:53 am Post subject:

xwild · n00b Joined: 15 Jun 2002 Posts: 7 Location: NY

kaksi · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 125

There is no ebuild yet but here is the source. Hopefully someone can create an ebuild: http://primates.ximian.com/~rml/netapplet/

worldhealthpwoer · n00b Joined: 31 May 2005 Posts: 2

Very good info...keep em coming!
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fergus · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 99

I won't be working on any ebuild for version 1.0.8. We have modified the current code so much that it is no longer a trivial task to update to the latest code from novell. The current ebuild/code that I have available works for most situtations. You can find it if you look back a few pages on this Topic.

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fergus

sog · Guru Joined: 04 Apr 2004 Posts: 356

with a Centrino ipw2200 chipset and netapplet r7, i'm getting strange behavior. when i first log in to GNOME, netapplet accurately displays the available networks with signal strength and everything. after selecting one, however, it immediately breaks, displaying "No Network Connections Available" and "No Wireless Networks Available" instead of the formerly available wireless signals.

and it's not that it won't work with the ipw2200 hardware - because it does initially. it just doesn't keep working.

here's the dmesg, in case it matters:

fergus · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 99

hmm.. that is strange. Can you try the 'Refresh Networks' option? I doubt it will fix it but worth a shot. Um, what is the output if you

cat /proc/net/dev

Just off the top of my head it seems that the client is losing connection to the server. Can you verify that the server is still running after this behavior starts?

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fergus

sog · Guru Joined: 04 Apr 2004 Posts: 356

no joy on "Refresh Networks." and i'm sure it's not a server issue, simply b/c when netapplet fails, a simple "/etc/init.d/net.eth1 start" connects to the network fine.

my output is here:

rabbit · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 8:07 pm Post subject:

ParaDoXke · n00b Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 9

I really can't get it running. It is installed, but when I run it, I get this errors:

dshanker · n00b Joined: 13 May 2002 Posts: 26

Do you see netapplet running when you run '$ ps -aux'? It seems there's an issue with the icon theme and netapplet that causes netapplet not to display an Icon when it's run. In my case, the only time I see an Icon is when the netdaemon is stopped. Other than that, I have to guess where the icon would be and click. Haven't found an icon theme which works either

Regards,

ParaDoXke · n00b Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 9

Yep, same here, i only get the icon when i stop netdeamon. Is there maybe any possibility to choose the icon yourself?
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