A few questions, need help!

So I am new to Ubuntu here and linux as well. Here are few question I hope someone can help me answer:

- I deleted the wireless bars that appears on startup and now I don't know how to get it back? I went to add icon and only got the network monitor to appear, how to I get the one with the wireless bars so I can search to find a wireless signal?
- One more thing, how is it possible that Ubuntu can use my wireless card, which is an intel, but windows xp can't even recognize it?

- Is it me or does your system randomly freezes up all of a sudden, like im just surfing the internet and then everything freezes...

- How to I get the avant dock to load up on startup?

- O and are there better drivers for my ati card (see sig) than the ones they offer? I tried to download from ati website but in came in a package when it doesn't run to install anything.
- also would my drivers be a issue why when I watch videos (mp4, .flv, etc.) it lags? I use vlc and the default player.

I enjoy using linux I find it smoother than windows but the only thing that sucks is that it cannot play the latest games or run maya...


~thanks

 

Your first question about your Wifi is a major problem I have had in the past and just recently. The Program is called Network Manager and the applet it installed is called nm-applet. There is some weird bug in gnome where it lets you remove some panel with this applet on it and then you are hosed. I did not have any luck every having it restart again no matter what I did and could never add it to the "system tray" again. I eventually uninstalled it and am running Wicd. I like it much better.

 

The nm-applet should come back after restart, check System->Preferences->Sessions and make sure the relavant network start-up is checked.

Ubuntu recognizes your wireless card because it has the best hardware recognition (other linux distributions as well) out of any operating system out of the box.

I can't answer much about the freezing, is there something you always seem to be doing when it happens?

avant-window-navigator can be added to the Sessions window I mentioned above. the command is avant-window-navigator.

Have you installed the proprietary ATI drivers from the Ubuntu repositories yet?

As for the Video issue, sometimes video can lag when using Compiz-fusion desktop effects, try turning them off if you have it enabled, (right-click desktop -> Appearance PReferences -> Effects I believe) and then try watching a video. If it works fine then there are workarounds for using compiz and watching video at the same time.

Cheers

 

I did all of that proxima, and still the problems persisted. It is a bug that NEEDS to be fixed. not saying your solution won't work for the OP's config, but I tried a lot of stuff and it didn't work.

 

Yea I followed the direction too and did not find a fix for it as well. Am I going to have to reinstall ubuntu to get one simple wireless bar back up?

 

Have you tried adding notification area with add icon?
(As in adding different icons to the top/bottom bar).
Cheers.

 

I had to. It kind of sucks. I tried to start the applet through the command line, tried to readd it to the top, tried to restart the service, tried to make sure it was started with my session etc and none of the things I tried worked.

Here is the thread I created on this forum about this very problem.

I have had this happen to me on 3 installs, 1 debian and 2 ubuntu installs. I try to clean up the "system tray" by removing unneeded applets and boom, just like that I accidentally remove the Networkmanager applet and I am screwed. I am surprised more people haven't complained about it.

If you can't find a solution seriously look into the program Wicd. It is simple and very intuitive. And it actually gives you a disconnect button to disconnect from your wireless connection!, what a concept

 

I second Fire_Snake's suggestion of using wicd. nm-applet has always been problematic for me. I've never found an issue with wicd, on the other hand. The latest version of the package now ships with the wicd-client that you can use to put it in the tray for easy access to the GUI configuration window (just call up the wicd-client command from the run dialog or session manager).

With few exceptions, I've found wicd to be more functional and robust than any other GUI wifi managers I've tried, Vista's included. For one, it lets you store different IP settings for different networks, so you can be static on one and dhcp on others. This is a feature that I've found frustratingly missing from Vista's repertoire. 3rd party solutions are flimsy.

 

Yep, Wicd is a great program! Zenwalk uses it as their default manager

 

A point about Wicd and connecting to a network with a hidden SSID, like mine. Just recently when I saved my network information in Wicd it would remember my encryption details but would always lose my SSID. I had to reenter it each time I rebooted and started Wicd. This problem does not exist anymore in the current version. Hidden SSIDs and the associated info is correctly remembered. I was pleasantly surprised

 

Yea I finally got Wicd running, so thanks guys for the tip! O and I got avant dock to load up right, now I just need to resolve the other issues...

 

I remember having a similar issue when I was mucking around with a wireless usb adapter when the latest Ubuntu was Hardy. I did fix it, though, but I forget what I did as this was a long time ago.

If you want to use Network Manager again, just uninstall everything to do with it and then try to re-install. Network Manager and that annoying applet is really crappy though and it's one of the worst applications in Linux, imho and it has been in a poor state for several distro versions, too. It also sucks no matter the desktop to make matters worse.

Anyway, I agree, Wicd is not too bad.