NM versus wpa_gui

[Phil Mayers <p mayers imperial ac uk>]

All,

Here at Imperial we've got a large Cisco b/g network with multiple 
broadcast SSIDs on each AP. I see two problems fairly frequently when 
using NetworkManager under FC6, which I never see if I use wpa_gui 
against a standalone minimally-configured wpa_supplicant.

OS is FC6 with current updates, wireless card/driver is madwifi (yes I 
know it's a rubbish closed driver - but some genius deployed it as 
standard on our laptops) current from livna RPM repo.

 1. nm_applet ALWAYS pops up the (massively over-complicated) dialog 
box asking for the EAP type, username, password etc. UNDERNEATH all the 
other windows. It then VERY frequently pops the same box back up (again, 
underneath all the windows) after a few seconds. Then often again, and 
again - as if it's either not getting or forgetting the info I type in.

 2. NM will associate some times, but other times it just seems to get 
stuck in a loop and spin it's cute little icon whilst doing something. 
In every case, if I "service NetworkManger stop" then fire up a 
standalone wpa_supplicant and wpa_gui, I can associate (and run 
dhclient) as stay associated for many hours. The standalone 
wpa_supplicant *is* using the wext driver.

I can see there's not enough info here - what more do I need to gather 
to troubleshoot this?