Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo + wifi

[Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk>]

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On Sun, 21 Mar 2021 22:41:44 -0500, Matt Connell (Gmail) wrote:

> However, USB wifi adapters are quite affordable and sufficient for your
> use case, in my opinion.

There are also PCI wifi cards, which would be neater on a desktop. Both
are very cheap, but check what chipset a card uses before buying. Some
need third party modules. I prefer Intel-based ones, they "just work".

> 
> > whether I would need to add any packages to my Gentoo system.  
> 
> Yes, you will.  You'll need to find out what chipset is used by the
> adapter you want to add (or already have). Once you have that, you can
> enable the appropriate kernel drivers and rebuild, and then you'll need
> to install net-wireless/wpa_supplicant to make the actual connection.
> 
> wpa_supplicant can be cumbersome to set up by hand, but the Arch wiki
> has a very comprehensive page[1] on how to configure it. 
> Alternatively, there are GUI tools for managing the configuration (the
> aptly named wpa_gui is usually enough; to get this, you need to enable
> the qt5 use flag for wpa_supplicant), but if you're connecting to one
> network, and never changing the configuration, that might be overkill.

There's nothing to stop you installing with the qt5 flag, setting up and
then removing the flag, although you won't save much if you have other Qt
apps installed.

Setting up wifi for the first time can be a bit trial and error, so you
will need a wired connection as a fallback to search for help or download
software. If possible, get wifi working before you move, most phones have
an option to act as a wireless access point, or hotspot, so you could use
that to make sure your wireless hardware and software is working before
you move. Then you only need to plug in the authentication details at the
new location and all should be well.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Don't judge a book by its movie.

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