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Network Managers on Arch

There seems to be two main choices: netctl and NetworkManager. NetworkManager are what most distros use. It's recommended for laptops, which are likely to roam and connect to many networks, because it has more support for "exotic" connections, e.g. bluetooth and eduroam. Some have the opinion that this makes it bloated.

netctl needs a DHCP client to run. Most people use dhcpcd. To get netctl to connect to a network, I use wifi-menu to create a netctl profile and on reboot, here is what I need to do:

1. ip set <NIC> down where <NIC> is often wlan0. NOTE: I find that this needs to be done even if ip a shows a DOWN status.
2. netctl start <netctl profile>
3. systemctl start dhcpcd.service NOTE: I find that this needs to be done even if dhcpcd.service is already running
4. ping google.com

Note that if running NetworkManager, the dhcpcd.service must be disabled. And if using a wireless connection, wpa_supplicant.service must be enabled. Wireless Protected Access (WPA) replaced WEP, and is currently being phased out in favor of WPA2.