How To Make Network Manager Applet Work After a Minimal Install of Ubuntu

I am in the process of making Bauer-Puntu Linux 10.10. This time around I wanted to try my hand at using the Ubuntu Minimal CD so I can keep the distro small, and not have a lot of stuff I don’t use on it. I tried this for version 10.04, but I couldn’t get the proprietary drivers to work right. This time around, that worked fine, but for some reason the Network Manager Applet would not show up in the notification area like it would if I did a full install of Ubuntu. After searching around for a while, I finally got it to work!

I will walk you through setting up a Mininmal install of Ubuntu, then how to get Network Manager Applet to work. Once that is working, you should be good to go on the rest of your customizations.

1. Download the latest Ubuntu Minimal CD
2. Install it like usual, and don’t select any packages when prompted
3. After the install, reboot and login.
4. Edit your apt-sources by un-commenting (Remove #) out all commented repositories (Follow these instructions)
5. Update your sources by running the following:
   
   >sudo apt-get update
   
   
6. Download a modified version of the script mentioned here: (How To Achieve Ubuntu Minimal) by doing the following:
   
   >wget http://ftp.bauer-power.net/dl/ubuntu-mini.sh
   
   
7. Once downloaded, make the script executable by doing the following:
   
   >chmod +x ubuntu-mini.sh
   
   
8. Execute the script by doing the following:
   
   >sudo sh ubuntu-mini.sh
   
   
9. Wait for the script to work it’s magic, and install your minimal Ubuntu system!

Ok, now that you have achieved Ubuntu Minimal now the part about getting Network manager Applet to work right comes into play. Here is what you have to do:

1. Open a terminal and issue the following:
   
   >sudo /etc/init.d/networking stop
   >gksudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces
   
   
2. Comment out everything under “The Primary Network Interface” in /etc/network/interfaces
3. Open /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf with your favorite text editor:
   
   >gksudo gedit /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf
   
   
4. In section [ifupdown] find the line managed=false and replace it with managed=true. Save and quit.
5. Run the following commands from the terminal, and you should now see the Network Manager Applet running in the notification area!
   
   >sudo service networking start
   >sudo service network-manager restart

I wish I had found this trick for the last two version of Bauer-Puntu! It is way easier to start with a minimal install than it is to start with full blown Ubuntu and removing the bloat.

If you are waiting for Bauer-Puntu 10.10 to come out. Please be patient. It should be ready in the next few days or so. That is, as long as I can find the time to keep working on it!

Via [Ubuntu Forums and Ubuntu Wiki]

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