On Thursday 03 September 2020 14:56:01 deloptes wrote:
> Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
> > Remove or comment out all lines except these 2, then reboot:
> >
> > auto lo
> > iface lo inet loopback
>
> good catch Dr. Klepp - I have completely forgotton that there are still
> people on desktops with entries in the file.
> When I read your question it lighted up again - to manage the networks by
> NetworkManager there should be no entries in there (except lo as pointed by
> you)
>
>
>

Changed these lines now (contrary to all advice found by online "experts"!), 
and I am now rebooting in order to do a test run. 

Science means that I ought to be able to reproduce your results, rather than 
attributing my problems to the Men in Black. 

Bill


P.S. Regarding those lines in /etc/network/interfaces
Okay, so that did the trick, I believe, so far as getting my network to behave 
normally again. I am puzzled about why it should begin to misbehave, when I 
have been using those settings since long before TDE and Debian. I believe I 
set those lines back when I started running Linux, sometime around Kubuntu 
Hardy Heron 8.04, so about 2006 or 2007, back when I still had direct contact 
with other human beings. 

Anyway, so the worst of the issue is solved. It seems that I can go 
online/offline, back and forth, without my connection getting caught in some 
limbo then needing to reboot. 

However, there is yet one glitch. When I tried to use tdenetworkmanager to 
connect, I can look at all available networks, as usual, and everything 
behaves as expected. I only needed to re-enter my wifi password, enable my 
chosen network, etc., but when I go to save the network, I am told that I 
don't have sufficient permissions. 

On the other hand, wicd seems to work normally again, so that life can go on, 
one way or another. I would like to solve this new issue, but if not, at 
least I can control my network connection. 

Bill