So, after a few tweaks, I got the computer to automatically connect to the hidden wireless network ...
Since the computers are pretty much stationary, I found a simple shell script to automatically connect to the hidden network on startup. Here's how (let me know if I should have put the .sh file somewhere else?) props to
http://blog.nixpanic.net/2011/01/connect-automatically-and-immediately.html1. Here's the .sh copy and paste and save as /bin/MyWifi.sh
#!/bin/sh
#
# Automatically try to connect to 'MyWiFi' when WiFi is enabled
#
# the output of nmcli should be in English
LC_ALL=C
# loop for a while until NetworkManager is accepting commands
while [ "$(nmcli -t -f WIFI,STATE nm)" = 'enabled:disconnected' ]
do
nmcli con up id MyWiFi
sleep 5
done
exit 0
#end of script you don't need this but you do need that last line (exit 0)
2. To make the script executable you have to open terminal (Ctrl+alt+t), then
sudo chmod +x /bin/MyWifi.sh
3. next let's open gnome-session-properties from the same terminal
sudo gnome-session-properties
4. In the Startup Applications Preferences window, click Add. You can name it what you want and add any comment. for "command" enter /bin/bash /bin/MyWifi.sh
5. Click Save, then close Startup Applications Preferences
6. type sudo reboot and watch as your computer now automatically connects to the hidden wifi
Note: I tried sudo nmcli con up id HiddenSSID replacing HiddenSSID with the actual SSID, and got that to work from the terminal after login, but could not get that to execute on startup
-bm