Regarding the best small linux distribution - I wish tc could ...

[bigpcman]

No doubt TC is a marvel of accomplishments brought about by very smart and dedicated people.

The thing I wish tc had was the equivalent of wired network ease of use for wireless networks. Like "hotplug" at boot setting up the system so it just works out of the box with no additional effort, none period, and no large add on programs beyond the absolute minimum required. (I'm referring to wireless for open network connections like at Borders)

I love the nomadic capabilities of the tc system, a system on a usb stick that can be moved around to any computer. But moving around from my dell 640 to my sony laptop and then to my eeepc900a has been interesting.  

[lucky13]

The thing I wish tc had was the equivalent of wired network ease of use for wireless networks. Like "hotplug" at boot setting up the system so it just works out of the box with no additional effort, none period, and no large add on programs beyond the absolute minimum required. (I'm referring to wireless for open network connections like at Borders)

Isn't this what extensions like wicd are for? The last bleeping thing I want is something set up as a default in an operating system that's automagically connecting my wireless card to any freaking network without any interaction from me, like a wifi "hotplug" would or if it worked the same as a wired jack that's been intentionally inserted into a computer's network card. It's easy enough to script your wifi set up to connect to "any" SSID if you really want to do that (I don't think you do if you think about it), but I also think it's irresponsible and stupid on several levels. I noted in some entries to my blog last year (when using certain other distros) that I would associate with another SSID before eventually associating with and connecting to my own. I don't want to connect to a neighbor's or stranger's router, nor do I want to connect to the first available network -- people who do that deserve to get pwned.

[florian]

Wicd has so huge dependences (bash, dbus, python, gtk2, and many many more) to perform something that should be a basic function. So I think it is important there would be a light solution available to laptop/netbooks users of tinycore.

There was a thread here with a small interactive dialog-based shell script to help connecting to hotspot. This is not complete, but if it could be extended also as a front end to wpa_supplicant, this could be a great minimalist replacement for wicd: http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?board=36.60

[lucky13]

Wicd has so huge dependences (bash, dbus, python, gtk2, and many many more) to perform something that should be a basic function. So I think it is important there would be a light solution available to laptop/netbooks users of tinycore.

http://www.tummy.com/Community/software/wifiroamd/

[bigpcman]

Alright then...

A boot code of "ssid=wifi_network" would satisfy what I'm after.

[lucky13]

Alright then...

A boot code of "ssid=wifi_network" would satisfy what I'm after.

Nuh uh. That's the kind of thing that can (make that SHOULD) be set to start automatically when you boot from bootlocal.sh or what have you. An extension like wifiroamd would allow you to manage your connections as you desire, but it shouldn't be part of the base. If you start adding in such "features" then you may as well include drivers, wpa_supplicant, and everything else required to correctly/safely use wifi out of the box and all of a sudden it's no longer a modular distro.

When I was using TinyCore on my Aspire One and roaming a lot (and I mean a lot), I set up various scripts based on if or where I wanted to connect. I understand you want more ease of use, but is it really so difficult to set up something so you scan to see what's available and then connect to what you want, especially at hot spots like you want to which tend to not use WEP, WPA, or anything else?

[florian]

http://www.tummy.com/Community/software/wifiroamd/

looks interesting, will have a look at it. thks for the link.

[bigpcman]

Alright then...

A boot code of "ssid=wifi_network" would satisfy what I'm after.

Nuh uh. That's the kind of thing that can (make that SHOULD) be set to start automatically when you boot from bootlocal.sh or what have you. An extension like wifiroamd would allow you to manage your connections as you desire, but it shouldn't be part of the base. If you start adding in such "features" then you may as well include drivers, wpa_supplicant, and everything else required to correctly/safely use wifi out of the box and all of a sudden it's no longer a modular distro.

When I was using TinyCore on my Aspire One and roaming a lot (and I mean a lot), I set up various scripts based on if or where I wanted to connect. I understand you want more ease of use, but is it really so difficult to set up something so you scan to see what's available and then connect to what you want, especially at hot spots like you want to which tend to not use WEP, WPA, or anything else?

Have you actually used wifiroamd?

[lucky13]

Briefly when I was using CrunchBang and Fedora last year and got fed up with network-manager. I know I blogged a little about it but apparently not about actually using it. IIRC, Ubuntu didn't have it in the repositories (I think Fedora did).

http://lucky13linux.wordpress.com/my-aspire-one-page/new-and-re-compiled-packages/

If you're worried about how difficult it may be to set up, here's one source I used to get it set up so that it would associate with my router instead of a neighbor's:
http://cli.donharper.org/2009/04/18/wifiroamd-intel-prowireless-3945abg-and-fedora/