"wireless disabled in software"

[Timothy Murphy]

Craig White wrote:

>> > right click on this [NM] icon to get a list of options.
...
> Sorry, it was a standard (left) click
> System tray => WLAN interface (widget)

OK, now I'm left clicking on the icon.
I get a window with 2 halves, entitled Interfaces and Connections.
I'm connected at the moment.
The left half-window says 
	WLAN Interface  Connected to wlan0
The right half-window says
	Connections     wlan0
and down the bottom
	Show More        Manage Connections
If I click Show More it just changes to Show Less but has no other effect.
If I click on Manage Connections I get the same window that I got
when right-clicking on the icon.
If I left-click on wlan0 the connection is broken for a second,
"Connected to wlan0" in the left half-window changes to 
"Configuring interface", then "Setting network address"
and then "Connected to wlan0" again.

OK, this is fine; but I don't see any of the goodies you mention.
There is no option to scan for APs, nor is there a list of available APs
(as provided by "iwlist scan", which incidentally shows 2 APs,
including the one I am using)

More to the point, if I am not connected for some reason,
the two window-halves are empty,
and there is no action offered to me to correct the problem
as far as I can see.

> Choose the appropriate WLAN interface (you probably only have 1 but you
> could conceivably have more than 1) and then on the right side, you can
> pick from the available Wireless LAN's.
> 
> Couldn't be any simpler.

I think you should consider the possibility that I don't see what you see.
Are you using KDE or Gnome?
 
> Perhaps you are looking at the wrong widget

I don't think so; I have 13 widgets in my panel, including 5 hidden ones.
Only one has any connection with wifi.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland