I had been using wicd on my old laptop for a few years. Then, when configuring a new computer, wicd failed to work on it. I tried, probably, everything, even the most low level CLI tools, but still connection kept failing, and frustratingly, it was providing almost no information about what was going wrong.. Then, I installed XFCE to had some temporary GUI, and its NM connected to WiFi. Now, I'm using NM, and still have no idea, why other tools did not work for me.