210321 Matt Connell (Gmail) wrote: > On Sun, 2021-03-21 at 21:25 -0400, Philip Webb wrote: >> my question is, if I use the Wifi services, >> is whether I would need to add hardware to my machine > It depends on if your motherboard has an integrated Wifi chip or not. > If it does not have an external connector for an antenna, > it probably doesn't have the hardware. However, USB wifi adapters > are quite affordable and sufficient for your use case, in my opinion.
I built the machine in 2015 & it doesn't have an integrated Wifi chip. I plan to built a new machine in Autumn 2021, so it looks as if I wb best simply transfering my present set-up to my new place & exploring the possibilities of Wifi after I've got organised there. >> & 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. Once you have that, > you can enable the appropriate kernel drivers and rebuild, > 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 1 network and never changing the configuration, > that mb overkill. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wpa_supplicant Thanks for your very clear, prompt & comprehensive explanation (big smile). -- ========================,,============================================ SUPPORT ___________//___, Philip Webb ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Cities Centre, University of Toronto TRANSIT `-O----------O---' purslowatchassdotutorontodotca
