Replacing Network manager with WICD

Fed up with slow shutdowns on the N210P when connected to the network drives, and as the usual changes (see end) didn't work, I decided to replace with Network Manager with WICD. I've done this before to get around the same problem and although I've not noticed a performance improvement I have read this is a side benefit.

sudo apt-get install wicd
wicd-gtk

Damn whitelist! Have to change the whitelist else the WICD icon won't show in the indicator display. Here I add both python and wicd to the whitelist (I could whitelist all but have had problems clicking on icons):


gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist "['JavaEmbeddedFrame', 'Mumble', 'Skype', 'python', 'wicd-client.py']"

Check that I can connect with WICD, then remove network manager

sudo apt-get remove network-manager

The default WICD icon is hideous in my opinion, luckily Will Laws has provided a revised set based on the default Network Manager set. Download the tar file from his site at the above link, then:

mkdir ~/tmp

cd ~/tmp

cp ~/Downloads/wicd-elementary-light.tar.gz .

tar -zxvf wicd-elementary-light.tar.gz

cp wicd-elementary-light/* /usr/share/pixmaps/wicd/

As mentioned above, the "usual" changes for slow shutdown of CIF drives didn't work, ie changing the run order at shutdown and reboot - see Ubuntu Wiki. I really do wish this basic problem, which seems to have been around for years, was resolved. The problem seems to lie with Network Manager shutting down before the CIF shares are unmounted.