This is so simple a question I hate to ask it but...

On my CentOS 7 machines I can right click on the NetworkManager Applet icon on the panel and select About. This tells me I have version 1.8.0. I am comparing an Ubuntu Mate 16.04 virtual machine with an Ubuntu Mate 18.04 virtual machine. NetworkManager applet on the 18.04 machine is different in that it allows me to change the MAC of the network card. This is something I can do on CentOS 7.

I wish to compare the version of the applet on the two Ubuntu machines to determine where they are in relation to the CentOS machine. I cannot find a network-manager-applet package for Ubuntu (there is one for CentOS). I have tried apt-cache search and dpkg -l but can find no trace of the applet. Any suggestions?

TIA,

Ken

I think the applet is included in the main package in Debian-based distros. It's called 'nm-applet'. But you just dofor the version. You can manually change the MAC withBring the interface down first.

Just for info, in Mint 18.3 MATE, based on Ubuntu 16.04, nm-applet comes in the network-manager-gnome package (v. 1.2.6-0ubuntu0.16.04.4).

AwesomeMachine is spot on with running NetworkManager to find the version, but there should be no need for sudo:

To save you time in the future when looking for similar info, a check of your task manager will show that nm-applet is running (to get the name of the program), and then running the following command provides the parent package:

Thanks AwesomeMachine,

I was looking for the CentOS named program. Ubuntu 18.04 has version 1.10.6 up from 1.2.6 on the earlier release. More on the MAC in a minute.

Thanks hydrurga,

That is a good tip about using task manager. I have done that and also used something like Had I done the latter I would have found the name of what I was looking for

I am not familiar with the -S option to dpkg. I do not find it in the man page. It does present a lot of information. Thanks again.


As far as changing the MAC...

I periodically change my Internet IP address. Why is a story for another day. For a LONG time I could issue a Release/Renew from my router and get a new address. Then the ISP changed something on their dhcp server and I had to do a Release/reboot on the router.

I am now using a small PC as my router (DSL modem in bridge mode). Over the past couple of months the ISP has made more changes (which their support folks know nothing about). I had been able do a dhclient -r then cycle the interface to get my new address. Then that quit working. I had to reboot the PC. Then that quit working. I had to plug a different device into the modem which forced a new address. That works IF I can even connect again. I set the MAC on the Internet facing NIC to "random" using network-manager-applet (CentOS) and cycled the interface. That worked twice when I tested it on Friday. I copied the commands to a script and tried it again today. Hosed up the works.

In the middle of all this I had replaced the CentOS PC with a Raspberry Pi - Ubuntu Mate 16.04. Worked fine except for the change address issue. Had several things work and then not work.

Network Manager's stated goal is to make networking "just work." It does that provided I want it to work the way NM wants it to work. Sort of like something from Microsloth

Ken

Hi Ken,

dpkg -S is actually dpkg-query -S, but is one of the many command line options from dpkg-deb and dpkg-query that can be used in dpkg too (it passes them on to the relevant command).