The other thing I wanted to mention about my brief interlude with Arch a day ago, was my surprise at using wicd. Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother messing with utilities or daemons that manage network connections. I rarely see the need when I can hand-edit the rc.conf file more quickly and easily than working my way through a GUI.

On the other hand, I have family members whose frustrations with Windows 7 and its precursors occasionally warrants teasing , and something like this is just the ticket.

Knowing that at some point they might ask for a system built to look like Windows XP Classic means I have to prepare for the least common denominator, and that means the things I take for granted — like reconnecting to a different network interface, or automounting USB stuff, or point-and-click wallpaper management — need to be a little easier to handle.

Enter wicd.