Re: wireless without network-manager... is it still possible?
On Thu 26 May 2016 at 17:05:02 -0500, David Wright wrote:
> On Thu 26 May 2016 at 20:29:30 (+0100), Brian wrote:
>
> > Life is too short to worry about whether network-manager delivers the
> > goods. Just use ifupdown and wpa_supplicant and you will live happily
> > ever after.
> >
> > People are fixated on wicd. What is so wrong with wpagui?
>
> Finding I had this installed, I ran it. I think I would need to set
> some configuration to allow that to work. That might be why it's in
> /usr/sbin.
A couple of lines in an /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and a
stanza in /etc/network/interfaces is needed for a roaming configuration.
After that, connecting to a wireless network with wpagui is as simple as
you describe for wicd.
> So, to root, where I generally won't run gui applications. So I ran
> /sbin/wpa_cli instead. "status" looked fine, and "interface".
> I tried "set":
>
> > interface
> Available interfaces:
> wlan0
> > set
> Invalid SET command - at least 2 arguments are required.
> >
>
> That doesn't quite chime with:
>
> set set variables (shows list of variables when run without arguments)
Someone got there before you. Bug #819229:
https://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-wpa-devel/2016-March/004142.html
> Most of the commands look rather low-level. So I quit.
wpa_cli is not something I would recommend to a user. However, if it
does not work you can be virtually certain there is a problem with your
device or the supplicant. wpagui uses wpa_cli.
> It doesn't seem to have a curses interface like wicd. Configuring with
> that is a piece of cake. IIRC the hostname is filled in for you, so
> all I had to do was pick an AP, press →, fill in the Key (it checks
> "Use Encryption" automatically) and check the desired options:
> "Use these settings for all networks sharing this essid" and
> "Automatically connect to this network", then press F10 to save.
Wicd and network-manager have the advantage over wpagui of dealing with
other than wireless. However, I quite like wpagui's direct interaction
with wpa_supplicant and not having to consider whether a problem lies
with some other program. Without wpagui, editing wpa_supplicant.conf is
relatively straightforward.
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