Kubuntu: Installing wicd help

hi,

you can also add the line to the package manager and install the package manually by following these steps:

1/ Open a terminal window
2/ type "sudo kate /etc/apt/sources.list"
3/ paste the line (amending "feisty" to "gutsy" if necessary) to the bottom of the file
4/ save and close the file
5/ type "sudo apt-get update"
6/ type "sudo apt-get install wicd"

Alternatively you can just download the packaged .deb file and install it manually. Rather than downloading the .tar.bz2 file, download the .deb file from https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=194573 to your desktop and double-click it. This should install the software.

Good luck!

Chris

Thank you with your help so far. Your suggestions helped me find out what my problem actually was. And that is that python-gtk2 and python-glade2 are required to install wicd, but my Adept Manager does not know how to install them - it only knows how to install python-gtk-1.2 and python-glad-1.2.

So I downloaded python-gtk2 and tried running ./configure on it. Here's the error I got.
checking for GLIB - version >= 2.0.0 ... no
*** A new enough version of pkg-config was not found.
*** See http://www.freedesktop.org/software/pkgconfig/
configure: error: maybe you want the gtk-gnome-1-2 branch?

So I went to the website and downloaded and installed the latest pkgconfig. Running ./configure on python-gtk2 now gives a newer error:
checking for GLIB - version >= 2.0.0 ... no
*** Could not run GLIB test program, checking why...
*** The test program failed to compile or link. Se the file config.log for the
*** exact error that occurred. This usually means GLIB is incorrectly installed.

How am I supposed to know what to do differently on my installation of pkgconfig? All I did was ./configure, make, sudo make install on it. I wasn't able to understand any of the weird code that came out when I used make but I think I remember a lot of pointer warnings but no errors.

This is getting so confusing. I need pkgconfig to install python-gtk2 which is one of the two things I need to get to install wicd which is only one of the things I need to do in order to get my wireless card to work with linux. Now I'm probably going to have to search through lots of stuff and maybe install even more things just to get pkgconfig. Is this what linux is like all the time?

Hi,

To answer your question of "Is this what linux is like all the time?", unfortunately this is a common problem with wireless device manufacturers, and hardware manufacturers in general. They very often refuse to release drivers for Linux, or even just technical specs for the devices which would allow the Linux community to develop the drivers themselves. This makes it very difficult for Linux to support some hardware, through no fault of its own. You can find a list of the devices currently supported here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported

The trouble with dependencies you are experiencing (one package requires another, which requires another, etc etc) is a common side-effect of installing badly designed software from third party sources. Wherever possible, try to install software from the Ubuntu repositories (through apt-get, Synaptic, or Applications -> Add/Remove). Both python-gtk2 and python-glade2 are available in the default Ubuntu repositories and entering the following command into a terminal window should install them:

sudo apt-get install python-glade2 python-gtk2

Good luck!

Chris

user@user-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install python-glade2 python-gtk2
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package python-glade2 is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package python-glade2 has no installation candidate

user@user-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install python-gtk2
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package python-gtk2 is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package python-gtk2 has no installation candidate

Hey, at least we're getting closer! Thanks for your help so far.

I tried your 2nd suggestion 1st and noticed that there were missing files needed to install the deb packages of gtk2 and glide2. I wonder how long that would have gone? :)

Anyway, you were right. To my complete bafflement considering that I had just downloaded Kubuntu off of the website only a few weeks ago, the updater wanted to update me to the latest version which I apparently didn't have.

Thanks for the big learning experience.

Thanks Chris Fox, that solved my question.