Short help/information for Xorg Farewell 2021.2.0

The Xorg and noX flavors come with a new tool to connect your wireless devices. Intels iNet wireless daemon (iwd) sends WPA-Supplicant into well-earned retirement. Ten times smaller and a lot faster, iwd will be the successor. Further information can be found in the Arch Linux wiki.

You can start an interactive shell by running iwctl from a terminal. Entering 'help' in the shell gives you all the options to list, scan and connect to your device or simply use nmtui or nmcli on the command line or the graphical-interface of Network-Manager

You can also use the following command to connect, without the interaktiv shell, to your Wi-Fi: 

iwctl --passphrase T0pS3ckr3t station wlan0 connect Home-Office
If it is a hidden network, use the 'connect-hidden' option.
To find out which station you need to point out, use the 'iwctl station list' command.

If you want to use wpa_supplicant instead of iwd follow the steps below.

First stop and mask iwd.service, stop NetworkManager.service, rename /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/nm.conf, unmask and start wpa_supplicant.service, start NetworkManager.service again: 

            sudo systemctl stop iwd.service
            sudo systemctl mask iwd.service
            sudo systemctl stop NetworkManager.service
            sudo mv /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/nm.conf /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/nm.conf~
            sudo systemctl unmask wpa_supplicant.service
            sudo systemctl enable --now wpa_supplicant.service
            sudo systemctl start NetworkManager.service

Now you should be able to connect your wireless device with wpa_supplicant.

Installing iwd

If you like, you can use iwd in the other flavors too, either on its own or within Network-Manager.

To easily set iwd up, use these steps: 

            sudo apt update
            sudo apt install iwd
            sudo systemctl stop wpa_supplicant.service
            sudo systemctl mask wpa_supplicant.service
            sudo systemctl stop NetworkManager.service
            sudo touch /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/nm.conf
            sudo echo -e "[device]\nwifi.backend=iwd" > /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/nm.conf
            sudo touch /etc/iwd/main.conf
            sudo echo -e "[General]\nEnableNetworkConfiguration=true\n\n[Network]\nNameResolvingService=systemd" > /etc/iwd/main.conf
            sudo systemctl enable --now iwd.service
            sudo systemctl start NetworkManager.service

The following non-free and contrib packages are installed by default:

Non-free

Contrib

Return to non-free

Right now the installer does not offer an opt-out for packages that do not comply with DFSG, the Debian Free Software Guidelines. That means that non-free packages like unfree firmware will be installed by default on the system. The command vrms will list these packages for you. You can remove not wanted packages manually or remove them all by issuing apt purge $(vrms -s) before or after installation. Else our script remove-nonfree can do that for you.

Installation hints and known issues

Credits for siduction 2021.2.0

Core Team

Alf Gaida (agaida), vanished from the face of the earth
Axel Beu (ab) †, In memoriam
Torsten Wohlfarth (towo)
Hendrik Lehmbruch (hendrikL)
Ferdinand Thommes (devil)
Vinzenz Vietzke (vinzv)

Code, ideas and support:

der_bud
Stefan Tell (cryptosteve)
Markus Meyer (coruja)
akli (for his work on getting the manual back in shape)

Thank you!

We want to thank all testers and all the people giving us support over the years. This is also your achievement. We also want to thank Debian, as we are standing on the shoulders of giants.
And now enjoy!

On behalf of the siduction team:

Ferdinand Thommes