I am a newbie to Linux and recently installed Ubuntu 9.04 on an HP DV6500 Laptop. No problem with the installation but wireless is a different story. Using Network Manager, wireless would not work at all. Then I read about WCID and so installed that. It listed all wireless networks in the close environs and I selected mine and entered a password and, voila, I was connected to the internet - for about one minute. If I connect the laptop via an ethernet cable to the router (a Belkin), the connection is stable. Via wireless, the connection keeps dropping and I have to disconnect and reconnect and then it works again, for a minute or three or whatever. The laptop uses an Intel Pro/wireless 3945ABG.

The same laptop, when running Vista (it had a HDD failure) never had this wireless dropping problem. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be?

Can you post the output of lsmod? I just want to check what module you have loaded for it. I tried wcid once but had bad luck with it. Network manager has always worked for me. When you say Network Manager would not Work can you expand a little more?

lsmod output:
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garry@garry-laptop:~$ sudo lsmod
[sudo] password for garry:
Module Size Used by
aes_i586 15744 1
aes_generic 35880 1 aes_i586
i915 67844 2
drm 96424 3 i915
binfmt_misc 16776 1
ppdev 15620 0
bridge 56212 0
stp 10500 1 bridge
bnep 20224 2
input_polldev 11912 0
joydev 18496 0
lp 17156 0
parport 42220 2 ppdev,lp
arc4 9856 2
ecb 10752 2
snd_hda_intel 434100 3
snd_pcm_oss 46336 0
snd_mixer_oss 22656 1 snd_pcm_oss
iwl3945 97912 0
snd_pcm 83076 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy 10756 0
mac80211 217592 1 iwl3945
snd_seq_oss 37760 0
snd_seq_midi 14336 0
led_class 12036 1 iwl3945
snd_rawmidi 29696 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 15104 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
uvcvideo 63368 0
snd_seq 56880 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
psmouse 61972 0
snd_timer 29704 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 14988 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
pcspkr 10496 0
serio_raw 13444 0
video 25360 0
iTCO_wdt 19108 0
compat_ioctl32 9344 1 uvcvideo
ricoh_mmc 11904 0
sdhci_pci 15232 0
sdhci 23940 1 sdhci_pci
snd 62756 15 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_de vice
cfg80211 38288 2 iwl3945,mac80211
iTCO_vendor_support 11652 1 iTCO_wdt
videodev 41600 1 uvcvideo
v4l1_compat 21764 2 uvcvideo,videodev
output 11008 1 video
intel_agp 34108 1
agpgart 42696 3 drm,intel_agp
soundcore 15200 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 16904 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
ohci1394 38576 0
ieee1394 94660 1 ohci1394
r8169 40836 0
mii 13312 1 r8169
fbcon 46112 0
tileblit 10752 1 fbcon
font 16384 1 fbcon
bitblit 13824 1 fbcon
softcursor 9984 1 bitblit
garry@garry-laptop:~$

Check that you've got the 1.6 version of wicd installed. The 1.5 version to which Ubuntu defaults has a few problems that were fixed in the 1.6 release. (You'll need to enable the "extras" repository to get the newer release.)

It may be me being a Linux neophyte, but I could not get Network Manager to connect to the wireless. A wired connection worked. I did come across a method of removing all references to wireless in etc/network/interfaces
--------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, I found this little gem of information:

“Debian and Ubuntu modified NetworkManager so that it would not manage any devices listed in /etc/network/interfaces. If you open this file and comment out the lines for the interfaces you want to manage and reboot NetworkManager will see them.”

…so, I commented out the two lines about eth1 and a reboot later NetworkManager worked just fine! Just had to select the network and enter the passphrase.
http://boff.wordpress.com/2007/01/13...ager-wireless/

I checked the About on WICD and it is 1.6.2

One thing that i noticed when using a public access point which required me to log in, was that the AP dropped my log in after a (brief) period of inactivity. To get around this, I found something like

in a konsole session, made a lot of difference. I never got around to investigating this further as there didn't seem to be anyone who understood what their network was doing and it seemed to be on their side rather than mine (but I was using network manager rather than wicd, if that makes any difference).