On Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 12:23:06PM -0500, Steve Litt wrote:

[cut]

>
> * Because most wifi software sucks, I suggest Devuan roll its own CLI
> software, for the installation, that iwlist wlan0 scanning lists the
> access points, takes the ssid and password, and then appends the
> result of wpa_passphrase to the bottom
> of /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf. In my experience this is
> the most reliable way to get wifi running for a given access point.

That's a very good point, but unfortunately it is not as
straightforward to implement as it sounds, since when it comes to wifi
networks there are more exceptions than rules.

Just to make the point: you are assuming above that the wifi network
you want to connect to uses WPA :) And what if it doesn't? What if it
uses the old WEP? What if is is open and uses no encryption at all?
What if the WPA authentication protocol requires a certificate (like
in the case of most corporate networks)? I could make two dozens more
examples of exceptions to "iwlist scan | grep ESSID > networks.txt"....

I don't want to say that it is impossible to put together a working
script which manages wifi connections. It's certainly doable. Only,
the experience of the last 10 years has suggested that when you try to
do that you systematically end up with something like wicd or conman
(and I don't dare to mention THE-THING here), which are pretty bulky
pieces of software, not "just a script". And it is mostly due to the
necessity to handle more corner cases than general rules.

It's not easy to work at the base.

My2Cents

KatolaZ

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[ ~.,_  Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ - GLUGCT -- Freaknet Medialab  ]  
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