5 ms·

This looks really nice, I like the design, congrats. I’ve been getting into Arch (with Sway) recently and resisted installing something like this initially sin

This looks really nice, I like the design, congrats. I’ve been getting into Arch (with Sway) recently and resisted installing something like this initially since as they say, the manual install process is the tutorial. Getting basic WiFi connected with DHCP on vanilla Arch requires enabling multiple services and conf file edits - you rage against the machine thinking why is it so hard but then realise you just learnt how to swap out any part of your network stack (or the other fun footgun of installing multiple conflicting network managers to intermittently and silently break your connection). Anyway, rant over, not going back to Ubuntu anytime soon.

scottyeager 2y ago
Welcome to the dark side :) I recently finally switched to NetworkManager after using Arch's netctl for years (since so long ago I don't remember why I picked it in the first place). It's been a nice experience so far and I don't have any reason to reach for something more minimal again for network management. That's the beauty of Arch—you will indeed learn a lot by default but all the options are there and well documented in the wiki of course. Anyway, have fun, and remember, it's not a partial upgrade if you didn't sync your package lists (that one took me too long to figure out). Breaking stuff is part of the fun and learning for sure, but to be honest maintaining Arch becomes rather routine after the initial learning curve. In a way even less so than non rolling distros since there's never a jarring version bump with some big changes. My current install has been chugging along for over seven years across two different laptops.
somat 2y ago
Coming from openbsd, linux wifi management was a real disappointment. To be fair freebsd's wifi system was not very good ether. at a low level you needed to muck around with three different config programs to get it to work, and more often than not you did not want to touch any of that because it would interact badly with network manager, a 800 pound gorilla of a program containing more code and configuration options then most of openbsd. I am not ashamed to say that networkmanager always intimidated me. The amount of care the openbsd team puts into keeping it's system simple is very under rated. If unfamiliar, all you usually need for openbsd wifi is. ifconfig iwn0 join "essid" wpakey "itsasecret" jam 'join "essid" wpakey "itsasecret"' into your /etc/hostname.iwn0 and you are good to go.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  Seems similar: iwctl station wlan0 connect "essid" --passphrase "itsasecret" The permanent config would be stuffed into /var/lib/iwd/essid.conf (different file per SSID) The harder part for me is remembering it's "iwctl station wlan0 scan && iwctl station wlan0 get-networks" to see what's out there for a new connection. Of course I always cheat and make a wifi-scan wrapper script so maybe that's why I never remember...
  - somat 2y ago
    Once you get rid of network manager it's not terrible. I think to part that felt less than satisfactory was first you have to get the interface up, so read the man page for "ip" and figure that out. then you have to get the wifi parameters set but you can't do the from "ip" (why not?) so you grab iwctl and get that going. then just to add insult to injury it still would not work and you had to figure out "wpaclient"(I have not set up wifi on linux in a while is this still needed?). whereas on openbsd it is one command and there is never a management utility you have to watch out for unless you put it there yourself, and you probably would not do that because the base does a decent job at this it is why they added the "join" command. openbsd may still need "wpaclient" but only if you want to connect to a .11x type network not for the more common psk ones.
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      "Wpa_supplicant" perhaps? That's wha iwctl replaced. You don't need anything else installed to connect to .1X networks just "iwctl station wlan0 connect examplessid" and follow the prompts.
II2II 2y ago
> Getting basic WiFi connected with DHCP on vanilla Arch requires enabling multiple services and conf file edits - you rage against the machine thinking why is it so hard It's not trivial, but it's not difficult either. I have been using iwd. It involves installing one package, editing one file, and enabling two services. There are no dependencies beyond the base package, partially because a DHCP client is built into iwd. It may be possible to get away with enabling only one service, but I haven't figured out how to get the glibc resolver working. Incidentally, this TUI appears to be a replacement connection manager for iwd's `iwctl` command. Of course, installing a desktop environment may result in NetworkManager being installed and NetworkManager will install it's preferred network stack. That said: I don't recall Arch enabling NetworkManager by default, though it is definitely something people would enable when installing a desktop environment (leading to the dueling network managers situation). (A similar lesson learned: systemd-boot is much easier to setup than traditional boot managers and it is installed on Arch by default. Like iwd, it is meant for common straight forward setups.)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- saghm 2y ago
  What confuses me about the part of the article you quote is that wifi doesn't really stick out as one of the harder parts of installing Arch; having fine-grained control over how the system is set up and therefore configuring everything by hand is kind of the point! At least to me, it's more straightforward than manually partitioning/formatting the hard drive and manually populating /etc/fstap, especially when you want to involve things like LUKS and LVM. My standard practice if I need wifi is to start with `wpa_supplicant` and `dhcpcd`, and then I can swap to NetworkManager later when I get around to setting up the GUI (which will usually be "post install", after I've rebooted into the new installation). Setting them up sounds similar to iwd (editing one file and enabling two services), which is pretty run-of-the-mill for an Arch installation. > Of course, installing a desktop environment may result in NetworkManager being installed and NetworkManager will install it's preferred network stack. That said: I don't recall Arch enabling NetworkManager by default, though it is definitely something people would enable when installing a desktop environment (leading to the dueling network managers situation). It definitely doesn't enable it by default; I'm not really even sure what "default" would mean in this context because Arch doesn't really have an "installer" in the traditional sense. An Arch installation typically will comprise of partioning/formatting the hard drive, mounting the partitions, running `pacstrap` to install things directly to the mounted root rather than to the currently running system, and then chrooting in to manually configure anything else that's needed. I guess some people might consider what you get from the `base` set of packages to be "default", but IIRC that alone wouldn't come with _anything_ to configure wifi, let alone NetworkManager.
dataflow 2y ago
> you rage against the machine thinking why is it so hard but then realise you just learnt how to swap out any part of your network stack (or the other fun footgun of installing multiple conflicting network managers to intermittently and silently break your connection) I achieved the first one (and at some point the last one) without achieving the middle one, I think...
crabbone 2y ago
I had a similar experience back when I switched to Arch. For some reason, the default at the time for network configuration was netctl. Coming from a world where default = old, true and tried, I assumed that newtorkctl is going to be just that. Fast-forward few years: I learned that no matter the Linux distro, true and tried is NetworkManager. It has various flaws, which is why there are plenty of complementary / alternative management solutions, but they usually come with more flaws than what they purport to replace / complement. Also, it's worth learning several commands from nmcli family. Especially, when it comes to wifi: nmcli d wifi list nmcli d wifi connect $SSID password $PASSWORD This will cover most of what you need when connecting to WiFi with your laptop wherever you need most of the time.
- freedomben 2y ago
  > I assumed that newtorkctl is going to be just that. My morning brain read that like "new torque sea tee ell" and didn't realize there was a typo. It was incredibly confused for several long seconds thinking that one through. Finally after being unable to understand it, I noticed it was a typo.
  - crabbone 2y ago
    Yeah :) It's actually netctl. I haven't used it for so long, I forgot what it's called.
- jasonjayr 2y ago
  Network Manager also has 'mntui' -- which is a simple text ui for configuring Wifi. As a systems guy, on Debian, the workflow that works for me is to have wired interfaces defined as 'manual' in /etc/network/interfaces, so NetworkManager skips them, and I can configure them using the typical linux tooling and leave wifi managed by NetworkManager, so it can easily manage the dance between WPA/DHCP/AP association.
  - jasonjayr 2y ago
    Past the edit deadline, that should be 'nmtui'
dtx1 2y ago
I highly recommend nm-applet in arch and sway. Its just so much less pain having a small ui to use
nixosbestos 2y ago
[flagged]
nixosbestos 2y ago
Lol sorry for my comment interrupting the circle jerk of arch users. You're right, learning a bunch of bespoke commands you have to run on every new install is super based.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

scottyeager 2y ago

Welcome to the dark side :) I recently finally switched to NetworkManager after using Arch's netctl for years (since so long ago I don't remember why I picked it in the first place). It's been a nice experience so far and I don't have any reason to reach for something more minimal again for network management. That's the beauty of Arch—you will indeed learn a lot by default but all the options are there and well documented in the wiki of course. Anyway, have fun, and remember, it's not a partial upgrade if you didn't sync your package lists (that one took me too long to figure out). Breaking stuff is part of the fun and learning for sure, but to be honest maintaining Arch becomes rather routine after the initial learning curve. In a way even less so than non rolling distros since there's never a jarring version bump with some big changes. My current install has been chugging along for over seven years across two different laptops.

somat 2y ago

Coming from openbsd, linux wifi management was a real disappointment. To be fair freebsd's wifi system was not very good ether. at a low level you needed to muck around with three different config programs to get it to work, and more often than not you did not want to touch any of that because it would interact badly with network manager, a 800 pound gorilla of a program containing more code and configuration options then most of openbsd. I am not ashamed to say that networkmanager always intimidated me. The amount of care the openbsd team puts into keeping it's system simple is very under rated. If unfamiliar, all you usually need for openbsd wifi is. ifconfig iwn0 join "essid" wpakey "itsasecret" jam 'join "essid" wpakey "itsasecret"' into your /etc/hostname.iwn0 and you are good to go.

zamadatix 2y ago
Seems similar: iwctl station wlan0 connect "essid" --passphrase "itsasecret" The permanent config would be stuffed into /var/lib/iwd/essid.conf (different file per SSID) The harder part for me is remembering it's "iwctl station wlan0 scan && iwctl station wlan0 get-networks" to see what's out there for a new connection. Of course I always cheat and make a wifi-scan wrapper script so maybe that's why I never remember...
- somat 2y ago
  Once you get rid of network manager it's not terrible. I think to part that felt less than satisfactory was first you have to get the interface up, so read the man page for "ip" and figure that out. then you have to get the wifi parameters set but you can't do the from "ip" (why not?) so you grab iwctl and get that going. then just to add insult to injury it still would not work and you had to figure out "wpaclient"(I have not set up wifi on linux in a while is this still needed?). whereas on openbsd it is one command and there is never a management utility you have to watch out for unless you put it there yourself, and you probably would not do that because the base does a decent job at this it is why they added the "join" command. openbsd may still need "wpaclient" but only if you want to connect to a .11x type network not for the more common psk ones.
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    "Wpa_supplicant" perhaps? That's wha iwctl replaced. You don't need anything else installed to connect to .1X networks just "iwctl station wlan0 connect examplessid" and follow the prompts.

II2II 2y ago

> Getting basic WiFi connected with DHCP on vanilla Arch requires enabling multiple services and conf file edits - you rage against the machine thinking why is it so hard It's not trivial, but it's not difficult either. I have been using iwd. It involves installing one package, editing one file, and enabling two services. There are no dependencies beyond the base package, partially because a DHCP client is built into iwd. It may be possible to get away with enabling only one service, but I haven't figured out how to get the glibc resolver working. Incidentally, this TUI appears to be a replacement connection manager for iwd's `iwctl` command. Of course, installing a desktop environment may result in NetworkManager being installed and NetworkManager will install it's preferred network stack. That said: I don't recall Arch enabling NetworkManager by default, though it is definitely something people would enable when installing a desktop environment (leading to the dueling network managers situation). (A similar lesson learned: systemd-boot is much easier to setup than traditional boot managers and it is installed on Arch by default. Like iwd, it is meant for common straight forward setups.)

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
saghm 2y ago
What confuses me about the part of the article you quote is that wifi doesn't really stick out as one of the harder parts of installing Arch; having fine-grained control over how the system is set up and therefore configuring everything by hand is kind of the point! At least to me, it's more straightforward than manually partitioning/formatting the hard drive and manually populating /etc/fstap, especially when you want to involve things like LUKS and LVM. My standard practice if I need wifi is to start with `wpa_supplicant` and `dhcpcd`, and then I can swap to NetworkManager later when I get around to setting up the GUI (which will usually be "post install", after I've rebooted into the new installation). Setting them up sounds similar to iwd (editing one file and enabling two services), which is pretty run-of-the-mill for an Arch installation. > Of course, installing a desktop environment may result in NetworkManager being installed and NetworkManager will install it's preferred network stack. That said: I don't recall Arch enabling NetworkManager by default, though it is definitely something people would enable when installing a desktop environment (leading to the dueling network managers situation). It definitely doesn't enable it by default; I'm not really even sure what "default" would mean in this context because Arch doesn't really have an "installer" in the traditional sense. An Arch installation typically will comprise of partioning/formatting the hard drive, mounting the partitions, running `pacstrap` to install things directly to the mounted root rather than to the currently running system, and then chrooting in to manually configure anything else that's needed. I guess some people might consider what you get from the `base` set of packages to be "default", but IIRC that alone wouldn't come with _anything_ to configure wifi, let alone NetworkManager.

dataflow 2y ago

> you rage against the machine thinking why is it so hard but then realise you just learnt how to swap out any part of your network stack (or the other fun footgun of installing multiple conflicting network managers to intermittently and silently break your connection) I achieved the first one (and at some point the last one) without achieving the middle one, I think...

crabbone 2y ago

I had a similar experience back when I switched to Arch. For some reason, the default at the time for network configuration was netctl. Coming from a world where default = old, true and tried, I assumed that newtorkctl is going to be just that. Fast-forward few years: I learned that no matter the Linux distro, true and tried is NetworkManager. It has various flaws, which is why there are plenty of complementary / alternative management solutions, but they usually come with more flaws than what they purport to replace / complement. Also, it's worth learning several commands from nmcli family. Especially, when it comes to wifi: nmcli d wifi list nmcli d wifi connect $SSID password $PASSWORD This will cover most of what you need when connecting to WiFi with your laptop wherever you need most of the time.

freedomben 2y ago
> I assumed that newtorkctl is going to be just that. My morning brain read that like "new torque sea tee ell" and didn't realize there was a typo. It was incredibly confused for several long seconds thinking that one through. Finally after being unable to understand it, I noticed it was a typo.
- crabbone 2y ago
  Yeah :) It's actually netctl. I haven't used it for so long, I forgot what it's called.
jasonjayr 2y ago
Network Manager also has 'mntui' -- which is a simple text ui for configuring Wifi. As a systems guy, on Debian, the workflow that works for me is to have wired interfaces defined as 'manual' in /etc/network/interfaces, so NetworkManager skips them, and I can configure them using the typical linux tooling and leave wifi managed by NetworkManager, so it can easily manage the dance between WPA/DHCP/AP association.
- jasonjayr 2y ago
  Past the edit deadline, that should be 'nmtui'

dtx1 2y ago

I highly recommend nm-applet in arch and sway. Its just so much less pain having a small ui to use

nixosbestos 2y ago

[flagged]

nixosbestos 2y ago

Lol sorry for my comment interrupting the circle jerk of arch users. You're right, learning a bunch of bespoke commands you have to run on every new install is super based.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]