I was trying out XFCE and LXDE as alternative desktop environments for a setup that required the OS to be less resource hungry. LXDE was my preferred choice. I was impressed by its minimal use of resources. Anyway, the network manager doesn’t show up in the default LXDE desktop i.e in the panel like in GNOME. This is just a simple post showing how to make that happen.. at lease with GNOME’s network manager. I read somewhere that theres a lighter version for LXDE but not too sure about that. Was in a hurry and thus settled for GNOME’s network manager.
Open the autostart file for LXDE:
sudo nano /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart
Add the following line to enable wireless features for the user:
@nm-applet
Save the changes and reboot the system.
The applet will show up in the lower right of the panel.