LinuxCon: Some advice from Uncle Dirk

"But KNM makes me jump though some non-obvious hoops to get anything done, having to know that I must choose "New Connection" in order to teach it about a network I've never been on before, and having to suffer through a popup menu that completely fills the screen of already learned networks when *none of them are in range*... and which is *in the way* of the other menu as I scroll up to do the thing I actually need to do."

Do they have a nm-applet for KDE.

NM in Gnome does not connect to a wireless network automatically unless you have already connected to the network before, but the only time you would have to add a new connection in order to make it appear in the list is for a hidden network. If a network is broadcasting an SSID it will show up in the list and you must click it the first time to connect, but it does not require creating a new connection. Granted it may be a bug in the kde interface.

how does Windows XP do it?

In all fairness it is a Gnome project, just as Amorak(I use Exile now, but it is different) does not run as well on Gnome, Network Manager does not run as well on KDE.

Good points though in your posting.