I know that I should re-install my Linux when a new distribution is available, but I never learn.  Perhaps in hope that this time, the upgrade will work flawlessly, but there’s always something that fails in the process.  For this distribution, it was my network.

At first, I was getting a slow boot.  My Linux told me to wait 60 second just in case my network connection would decide to show up.  Of course, like banging your head on a wall, the 60 second wait was useless.  I searched high and low for a solution on the Internet.  I found one that fixed my 60 second boot-up problem.   I had to move everything in the /var/run directory to the /run/ directory, and then simply add symbolic links to that folder—-yeah, I know, I was like, “What the fuck is this?”

ln -s /run /var/run

ln -s /run/lock /var/lock

That only fixed the 60 second boot-up problem.  I was unable to work with my network manager.   In fact, I had access to all my network cards through the konsole, which is fine and dandy, but I have to work with multiple networks, and changing everything without the GUI is just a plain pain in the ass.

I tried everything that was written on every blog and forum without any results.  So I made the decision to scrap everything and reinstall from scratch.

Hold and behold, the problem was still there.   No matter, from upgrade or fresh install, I couldn’t get my network manager to work.  Really, the problem lies with the plasma-widget-networkmanagement.  It simply doesn’t work with my laptop.  To fix this problem, I had to install the Gnome network manager (apt-get install network-manager-gnome) and then remove the kde network management (apt-get remove network-manager-kde).  I also had to make the nm-applet launch at boot-up, but now I can manage all my connections without any problems.

It might be a hardware incompatibility, but it was working with Natty.  All and all, this workaround works.  I will keep it for a while until I can have a proper resolution for this problem.

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Update:  Here is the fix for this problem.

Plasma-Widget-NetworkManagement: 11.10 upgrade fix