Purpose of the main KWiFiManager application is to show the currently set configuration and to display connection quality and access points.
The main application is launched by either typing
kwifimanager
at the command prompt of a console
window or via the K Menu, where it is located by default in the
group. Finally, a third way to
launch KWiFiManager is by clicking once on the panel applet. The GUI elements of the
application are explained in the following subsections.
The KWiFiManager main window consists of four major parts:
Here you can see the quality and type of the active connection. The uppermost icon displays the general state of the wireless network via a set of pictograms:
a PC-Card with a question tag means that no card was detected
a single laptop means that a PC-Card is inserted and in Infrastructure mode, but there is no radio signal from access-points. The card is out of range.
a laptop that is connected to a white box means that a connection to an access point is established.
two laptops mean that your system is in Ad-Hoc mode without access points
Below these pictograms is a small quality meter. It displays, in a cellular-like manner, the quality level of the current connection. This information is only available in Infrastructure mode. In Ad-Hoc mode, the level is always 0.
This graphical information is supplemented by an integer value below the
icon. It shows the signal quality, and is computed in the following way:
signal strength in dBm - noise level in dBm
If your card is out of range, the value is 0; if no card is inserted it
will show N/A.
A indicator for the current connection speed is shown at the right-hand side of the main window above the configuration info. If the speed settings are set to AUTO, the value will change once in a while as the card adjusts the connection speed according to the signal quality.
Here you can find information about your card configuration. It displays the following information:
the network with which the card is connected / tries to connect (Searching for network: or Connected to network:)
the MAC address of the access point to which the card is connected.
If the card is in Infrastructure mode but out of range, the value
44:44:44:44:44:44
is displayed to indicate that no connection
is established.
In Ad-Hoc mode, the field shows an address that is associated with one of the cards in the Ad-Hoc network. It differs from the MAC address of that card in the second digit: it is raised by the value of “2”.
Your card is the first card that enters Ad-Hoc mode. Then all other
cards entering Ad-Hoc mode will see your MAC-address, slightly
modified: instead of
00:xx:yy:zz:aa:bb
it will show
02:xx:yy:zz:aa:bb
. This behavior is
intentional.
on most cards, the frequency on which the card is transmitting data and the corresponding channel number is displayed.
your local IP address, if available.
encryption status (only if you have started KWiFiManager as
root
)
The last line of the main window shows information about your AccessPoint.
This requires that your system administrator provided a list of MAC addresses
with a corresponding information. An example for such a list can be found
in
$
KDEDIR
/share/apps/kwifimanager/locations/DE_BW_Karlsruhe_University.loc
If you want to set up a new list, simply copy your file into the
folder $
KDEDIR
/share/apps/kwifimanager/locations/
It will be automatically parsed at the next start of
KWiFiManager after a successful installation. If you have
a list and want to have it included in future releases of
KWiFiManager, simply send it to (mail AT stefan-winter.de)
Optionally, by selecting in the menu, a separate window can be shown which displays the signal level and noise level graphs of the last 240 seconds. The signal level is displayed in blue and the noise level in red. The difference (SIGNAL minus NOISE) is the connection quality which is displayed in the main window.
By selecting
-> you are taken to the control center module of
KWiFiManager. In case you are not the root
user, a window will pop up
requesting the root
password. This is because the configuration module contains sensitive
information such as the encryption key for WEP
cryptography.
There are some minor additional things to be said.
First, there is a feature named Acoustic Scanning. If this option is enabled, the connection quality is converted into an acoustic signal. A higher signal quality leads to a higher frequency of the “beep” output and to a more rapid beeping. If you've ever seen the Star Trek(tm) series you will see some parallels to their “tricorders”
A second feature is silent logging. It just
means that KWiFiManager will log the name of the network you are
connecting to every time your network changes. This option is most
useful when searching for the special network name “ANY”.
In this mode, the card will log into any network it finds. The
logfile's position is $
HOME
/.wireless-log
The third thing is just a note: In the menu, there is an entry . This option is not implemented. The problem is in the kernel drivers for Wi-Fi cards. The driver simply doesn't support it at this time.