connman and connman-ncurses: Pros and cons

These days I don’t have much installed in the category of “network connection manager,” even if I’ve seen plenty over the past two years. For a while I was a wicd fan, but the last time I checked wicd had stalled, and nothing really stepped up to replace it.

So in most cases, particularly if it’s not a terrifically complicated effort, I just use Arch’s wifi-menu or hand-manage connections with iwconfig and friends.

For an all-around suite of controls and connections, connman seems to do a good job. In its most primitive state, one-word commands will tell it what you want done with a network interface, and it’s more or less straightforward.

For a more replete user experience, connman-ncurses would be my suggestion.

That’s more to my liking. Straightforward keyboard controls and intuitive design, nice use of available space, and … well, I guess no color. 😦 But you can’t have everything.

Much of what connman-ncurses does can be inferred from onscreen tips, although I did refer to the git page once or twice, especially when I realized connman-ncurses (or probably connman) can disable your wireless at a keypress. And at some point, I must have pressed that key. 🙄

A decent addition to your text-only arsenal. Not in color, and with a few eccentricities to learn, but a lot of programs are like that. It’s worthy of a try or two. 😉