Wicd - A Powerful Network Management Tool For Ubuntu

written February 25 2007 by
Kommen
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22 Comments so far. Go, post one!
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Yesterday I tried to connect my notebook (running Ubuntu) to the wireless network at my girlfriend’s home — for nothing.
It didn’t work.

The network was secured with WPA and my Ubuntu Edgy was not able to connect to WPA protected networks out of the box.
I knew there is the tool named network manager, but I already tried to work with it some month ago – and I had no positive experience with.

While searching in the Ubuntu forums for a solution I found a new tool called Wicd (spoken: wicked).

With Wicd, your notebook connects to wireless networks at boot and has the ability to connect to most commonly used encryption systems like WEP, WPA 1/2 and a lot more.

Currently it is under heavy development, but it sounds promising and it already works very nice.

22 Comments

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Permalink to this comment { Chrissy }
on March 01 2007 (about 10:20 AM)

Danke Kommen! Meine Schwester wirds euch danken und hoffentlich bei Ubuntu bleiben nachdem ichs ihr eingeredet hab! :)
lg

Permalink to this comment { pharaoh }
on March 30 2007 (about 14:47 PM)

I hate network manager, everything from compiling it is a headache. And just doesnt work !!

Permalink to this comment { Paulo Pereira }
on April 20 2007 (about 19:52 PM)

I also tried Wicd and i am using it.
I can“t work with NetworkManager.
I need more control over what i do.

Permalink to this comment { Ripfox }
on April 21 2007 (about 21:14 PM)

WICD RULES THE LINUX WIRELESS APPS!!

Permalink to this comment { CwnAnnwn }
on April 22 2007 (about 02:35 AM)

Would love to try WICD. Since updating to Feisty I can’t get my Atheros card working. Came across this information about WICD, and figured to try it. Oddly, I am not able to get to the blackhole.cx web server to get to adam or compwiz18 to download the deb. Know of any mirrors to get the software from?

Permalink to this comment { Tim }
on April 23 2007 (about 21:57 PM)

The alternate link is down now as well. Worked earlier but not anymore now I’m home and itching to try it out. Ouch.

Permalink to this comment { Jason H }
on April 29 2007 (about 20:27 PM)

I’ve tried quite a few wireless managers for Ubuntu, and they all seem more difficult to set up and use than they need to be. wicd was easy to install, and using it was as straight forward as any wireless network manager I ever used in Windows. I won’t use anything else, and highly recommend it to anyone!

Permalink to this comment { kommen }
on May 01 2007 (about 13:44 PM)

I’ve updated the links in the article.

The project moved to SourceForge recently:

http://wicd.sourceforge.net/

Permalink to this comment { stilus }
on June 02 2007 (about 18:21 PM)

Had a little trouble connecting with wicd to a wireless network at a friends yesterday. I fiddled with some static ip’ing, before we figured out the guy gave me the wrong password. I could not easily remove the static settings from the gui, but never fear:
all your settings are in /opt/wicd/data/wireless-settings.conf (jups, including passwords, but luckily set “600” for root.)

I deleted the entry, restarted wicd (sudo /etc/init.d/wicd restart) and I was good to go again!

Permalink to this comment { gr8aussie }
on July 07 2007 (about 00:22 AM)

After searching the net and trial and error for a week now, Wicd works the best in Feisty Fawn. Using ndiswrapper and Windows drivers I finally got my wireless connection @ 54mbps, but only with Wicd! Network Manager wouldn’t even connect…Need I say more?

Permalink to this comment { debian_etch }
on August 11 2007 (about 11:01 AM)

What the relationship between wicd and etc/network/interfaces? Same as NM?

Permalink to this comment { Agias }
on January 01 2008 (about 14:47 PM)

Nice!

Permalink to this comment { Blingin2Mingin }
on April 27 2008 (about 19:49 PM)

Just Like to say Wicd saved my bacon yesterday.
My Inspiron 9400 has an intel 3945abg wireless card.
I upgraded to Hardy and the change from the ipw3945 Proprietary driver to the iwl3945 driver in Ubuntu, combined with some bug in Network Manager, meant that all though I could see networks I couldn’t connect to any with encryption enabled.
I upgraded the iwl driver with the one in the Hardy Backports Repository this had the effect of making the wifi led work but nothing else improved.
So getting desperate I Installed Wicd and it worked like a dream, Brilliant.

I recommended this little app to any one suffering problems with Gnome Network Manager and to anyone else that isn’t as its so much easier to get along with.

Permalink to this comment { Blingin2Mingin }
on April 27 2008 (about 19:49 PM)

Just Like to say Wicd saved my bacon yesterday.
My Inspiron 9400 has an intel 3945abg wireless card.
I upgraded to Hardy and the change from the ipw3945 Proprietary driver to the iwl3945 driver in Ubuntu, combined with some bug in Network Manager, meant that all though I could see networks I couldn’t connect to any with encryption enabled.
I upgraded the iwl driver with the one in the Hardy Backports Repository this had the effect of making the wifi led work but nothing else improved.
So getting desperate I Installed Wicd and it worked like a dream, Brilliant.

I recommended this little app to any one suffering problems with Gnome Network Manager and to anyone else that isn’t as its so much easier to get along with.

Permalink to this comment { Blingin2Mingin }
on April 27 2008 (about 19:50 PM)

Just Like to say Wicd saved my bacon yesterday.
My Inspiron 9400 has an intel 3945abg wireless card.
I upgraded to Hardy and the change from the ipw3945 Proprietary driver to the iwl3945 driver in Ubuntu, combined with some bug in Network Manager, meant that all though I could see networks I couldn’t connect to any with encryption enabled.
I upgraded the iwl driver with the one in the Hardy Backports Repository this had the effect of making the wifi led work but nothing else improved.
So getting desperate I Installed Wicd and it worked like a dream, Brilliant.

I recommended this little app to any one suffering problems with Gnome Network Manager and to anyone else that isn’t as its so much easier to get along with.

Permalink to this comment { Ralph }
on May 16 2008 (about 02:20 AM)

Wireless connectivity has been frustrating since my upgrade to Hardy a couple of weeks ago. I just installed wicd and it looks good so far. (Fingers crossed…)

Permalink to this comment { Vladsinger }
on July 08 2008 (about 18:19 PM)

Simply doesn’t work for me on zenwalk, where it is the default.

Permalink to this comment { larso }
on September 22 2008 (about 09:55 AM)

Awesome work m8. I’ve been looking for alternatives to the gnome network-manager, and this was every thing i needed.Hope you keep it up

Permalink to this comment { DD }
on November 13 2008 (about 07:49 AM)

OMG, I spent hours on the net trying to get NM to work and happened upon this link. The download and setup were EXTREMELY easy. After rebooting I immediately saw my wireless network and after entering the network key was connected.

Wicd is GREAT! Spread the word and thanks Wicd I was ready to give up on ever getting my wireless connection to work.

I will never go back to NM.

Permalink to this comment { Valerio }
on January 05 2009 (about 11:05 AM)

Don’t migrate so fast to wicd, it’s not working always as depicted out of the box. I’m a Debian user and in my experience nm has many hassles, but it almost works. On my Acer Aspire 5920 (intel 3945 wifi chipset) the wireless card simply don’t light up if I use it in combination with wicd. Using NM, if it is the wrong day, means to modprobe and rmmod iwl3945 a couple of times but I can connect at the end. My suggestion is to try both before choosing.

Permalink to this comment { Frank Henderson }
on June 21 2009 (about 03:06 AM)

I’ll ditto DD above. I’ve spent two very frustrating days trying to get back online and after installing wicd in 9.04 I was immediately connected. I just had to enter my password. Just fantastic! Doubters should at least give it a try.

Permalink to this comment { Oz }
on January 03 2010 (about 15:20 PM)

Wicd works perfectly in my Debian Lenny system. I installed it from www.backports.org . Remember to add user to “netdev” group.