[CentOS] Reliable way of having both LAN and WIFI on headless box

[Gary Stainburn]

On Tuesday 10 January 2017 08:53:17 John R Pierce wrote:
> On 1/9/2017 7:11 PM, fred roller wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 12:04 PM, Frank Cox<theatre at melvilletheatre.com>
> >
> > wrote:
> >> That sounds like a weak signal from your wifi transmitter.
> >
> > Or signal interference.  Where is the antennae located on the server? 
> > Ran into signal issues with antennae which were tucked behind the server
> > before.
>
> indeed, the back of a desktop or server system, sitting on the floor (or
> in a rack) surrounded by piles of cables, is the worst possible place
> for a 2.4GHz or 5.7GHz antenna

The server is in a rack, but the dongle is plugged in the front and is 5m from 
the HP Procurv AP that covers the whole of the first floor.

A key point I thought I had included in the OP is that this is mostly a 
problem on startup.  It does sometimes drop off during use, but mainly the 
problem  is not being able to activate it on startup.

I am a traditionalist and long for the days before NetworkManager when 
networks were much simpler to admin, and much more stable.

Is it possible to remove NetworkManager and go back to the good old days, and 
still have WIFI work properly?