How do I enable/disable wifi in Lubuntu 14.04

Question

In ubuntu (14.04) wifi cards can be enabled/disabled by clicking 'enable Wi-Fi', how can I get this feature in Lubuntu too?

Ubuntu (14.04):

Lubuntu (14.04):

In the latter the four last menu entries are gone somehow.

Solution

That useful feature is provided by the Network Manager Applet (nm-applet) in Ubuntu. Lubuntu has it installed, but not engaged, as if the OS was designed for old desktop PCs of the pre-wireless era. To remedy that, you can manually add nm-applet --sm-disable to autostart.

Lubuntu 14.04 has a nice GUI for that under
Menu->Preferences->Default Applications for LXSession->Autostart.

Logout/login to test when done.

Comments

[rajan]

try using rfkill

[Peter Raeves]

@rajan That works indeed, but why isn't it available in the UI?

[Peter Raeves]

I am using nm-applet at autostart (without --sm-disable, what would this feature do? It doesn't change much to the interface), but I am missing features which are present in Ubuntu, not in Lubuntu. I added a screenshot to show the difference.

[mikewhatever]

Ubuntu has it with --sm-disable by default, but I am not quite sure what it's for. Right click should bring up more options in Lubuntu.

[Peter Raeves]

That's not really convenient, but you are correct. The functionality I was looking for is accessible through right click only. Do you know of a way to have the same behavior as in ubuntu? Both right and left click offer the all functionality, not divided like in Lubuntu. Btw apparently sm stands for Session Management.

[mikewhatever]

No idea. Ubuntu (Gnome3?) has unified right and left clicks for its indicators, so that both show the same menus. What you see in Lubuntu is, apparently, the default behavior of Gnome2.