From Gentoo Linux Wiki

The purpose of this article is to show you how setup wicd.

[edit] Caution

While wicd starts up quickly, it doesn't connect to the internet any faster. Some startup processes will fail without internet access. In that case, continue to use net.lo. This is for the majority of people who only need internet after the xdm has started and is a way to speed up the entire boot up process.

[edit] What is wicd?

Wicd is a program that connects hardware to networks much like NetworkManager. However, its client is not connected to a desktop enviroment like knetworkmanager is. Thus is can startup in the boot process but it has less integration with the desktop. For example, knetworkmanager will automatically put firefox into offline mode when it disconnects. Wicd will not. Wicd is also considered more stable by many laptop users.

More information: http://wicd.sourceforge.net/

[edit] How to install and configure

To install wicd:

To start wicd:

Setup wicd to automatically start:

Do note that wicd will work fine without disabling net.eth0 at boot.

[edit] Disable net.eth0 (optional)

To stop net.eth0 from starting:

repeat for each network interface.

If gentoo still tries to start eth0 at boot, add this line to /etc/conf.d/rc for sys-apps/baselayout < 2.0:

RC_PLUG_SERVICES="!net.*"

Or add this line to /etc/rc.conf for sys-apps/baselayout 2.0

rc_hotplug="!net*"

[edit] Configuration

[edit] Files

/etc/wicd/manager-settings.conf
/etc/wicd/wired-settings.conf
/etc/wicd/wireless-settings.conf

They each have manpages to help with configuration. e.g. :

[edit] wicd-client (USE=gtk only)

To setup wicd with the gui , go into graphical windows system. There is a way to do this via command line: wicd-cli, but it is less intuitive.

The wicd gui is called wicd-client to run it enter:

into a terminal. There you will see all available wired and wireless connections. The advanced tab allows you to set up the encryption. Once everything is set here, they will be saved for wicd. The nice thing is that wicd will use the settings and connect as soon as wicd starts and doesn't require wicd-client to start.

IMPORTANT: to get wicd to connect to a wireless connection during boot, the "automatically connect to this network which availble" option needs to be enabled. Also note that wicd seperates each router as a different connection but there are options to save settings for any router with the same SSID.

That should be all you need to eliminate the net.eth0 speed bump

[edit] Problems

Sometimes the init process will still start up net.eth0 even with it not being enabled. This happens when another init script calls for net.lo as a dependence. It is probably best not to use wicd as the only network connector in these cases. You can edit the init script and change "need net.lo" to "need wicd", but this risks the process failing on boot up, such as netmount, because wicd will complete before a connection has been made.

The simplest way to stop net.eth0 from starting is to simply remove or rename it. Most of the "daemons" depend on "use net" which starts all the net.* daemons. The best solution would be to rename it, as you don't know when you will need it again.