Wicd, which stands for Wireless Interface Connection Daemon, is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

software utility Utility software is a program specifically designed to help manage and tune system or application software. It is used to support the computer infrastructure - in contrast to application software, which is aimed at directly performing tasks that b ...

to manage both

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

and wired

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

s for

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

. The project started in late 2006 with the creation of Connection Manager, which eventually became Wicd. Wicd aims to provide a simple interface to connect to networks with a wide variety of settings. Wicd will only automatically connect to wireless networks you have specified and will not automatically connect to an unknown network. Wicd supports wireless encryption using

wpa_supplicant wpa_supplicant is a free software implementation of an IEEE 802.11i supplicant for Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, QNX, AROS, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, OS/2 (including ArcaOS and eComStation) and Haiku. In addition to being a WPA3 and WPA2 su ...

. Users can design their own "templates", which can be used by Wicd to connect to a large variety of networks using any type of encryption wpa_supplicant supports. Wicd is split into two major components: the daemon, and the user interface. These two components communicate via

D-Bus D-Bus (short for "Desktop Bus") is a message-oriented middleware mechanism that allows communication between multiple Process (computing), processes running concurrently on the same machine. D-Bus was developed as part of the freedesktop.org pro ...

. This design allows the user interface to run as a standard user, and the daemon to run as the root user, so the user can change the wireless network without knowing the root password. The split interface/daemon design would also allow a person to write a new front-end to the Wicd daemon, such a
wicd-qt
There are also other front-ends available for many DEs such as

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

Xfce Xfce or XFCE (pronounced as four individual letters, ) is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Xfce aims to be fast and Lightweight software, lightweight whil ...

, and

Fluxbox Fluxbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, which started as a fork of Blackbox 0.61.1 in 2001, with the same aim to be lightweight. Its user interface has only a taskbar, a pop-up menu accessible by right-clicking on the d ...

. Wicd is currently available in some

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

s, such as

Gentoo Linux Gentoo Linux (pronounced ) is a Linux distribution built using the Portage package management system. Unlike a binary software distribution, the source code is compiled locally according to the user's preferences and is often optimized for ...

, Slackware Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System (SLS), Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distr ...
,

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

and

Zenwalk Linux Zenwalk GNU/Linux is a desktop-focused Linux distribution founded by Jean-Philippe Guillemin. It is based on Slackware with very few modifications at system level making it 100% compatible with Slackware. It aims to be a modern, multi-purpose L ...

. Debian has dropped support for it because Python 2 is no longer supported.

References

Applications using D-Bus Free network-related software Free software programmed in Python Free software that uses ncurses Software that uses PyGTK {{Linux-stub

See also

References