The reason I turned to use network-manager-gnome instead of wicd-gtk is because wicd-gtk has no option for setting up a connection to hidden ssid wpa network.
I encountered a problem after I installed network-manager-gnome from repositories, that is although service network-manager has started, no icons of network manager appeared in the panel. I checked from System > Preferences > Startup Application and saw nm-applet –sm-disable was added.
The solution to this problem is simple:
Use your favourite text editor and edit the /etc/network/interfaces:
root@bt:~# cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
#auto eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
#auto eth1
#iface eth1 inet dhcp
#auto eth2
#iface eth2 inet dhcp
#auto ath0
#iface ath0 inet dhcp
#auto wlan0
#iface wlan0 inet dhcp
By default everything was auto, I commented out everything except for these:
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
After commented the other autos, restart the network-manager service:
service network-manager restart
immediately after restart the network-manager-gnome icon appeared on the top right hand corner of the panel.
cyruslab 