Wireless networking on Trinity

[wove]

I installed Debian Bookworm with KDE on my 2010 MBP. I runs well. I followed the directions on the Trinity Wiki and installed the Trinity desktop. I can select either Trinity or Plasma when I log in. Trinity runs well, but I can not sort out getting it connected to wifi.

When I go to the wifi setup via the system tray icon and select scan for networks, I can see all the nearby networks points, but I am unable to connect to any. When I select the configuration editor it asks for "root" password. The Debian install sets an administrative password, but Trinity does not accept that as the root password, so the configuration editor never opens up.

So after one has Debian installed with a desktop environment how does on setup a root password? Or perhaps using Trinity how does one get Trinity to accept the administrator password as the root password. If I am missing software, I can use a cable connection to acquire the needed software.

[dai_trying]

To set the root password you could make yourself root (sudo would work) and then change your password using passwd command, and this should enable the root password to work with the wifi, which I think should solve that.

And if it doesn't work straight away you might need to reboot.

[wove]

Thanks. I guess I should have read the man page for passwd. RTFM:) At least superficially it seems to me that sudo passwd root represents something of a security hole? Feels like you should not be able to change root's password unless you have actually logged in as root.

But in the end that did not get me there. The wifi card is seen and is working. I can scan for wireless networks, but I cannot figure out how to connect to them. I can now run network configuration editor as root, but cable and see if I can figure out what I need and install it.

I of course hoped that setting up a wireless connection on the KDE session, would just make the connection available on the TDE session, but no joy there.

Thanks again, and everyone enjoy your weekend.

[tlmiller]

My question would be is Trinity using the networkmanager applet, or that default network manager, netcon or something similar. In my experience, the netcon manager is utter garbage. If it's using it, make sure to dump it and do tdenetworkmanager, or whatever the network manager frontend is. MASSIVELY better results. Last time I tried the default network manager I had the same experience as you, could see but not connect to networks.

[dai_trying]

Sorry, I guessed that the root account had not been enabled (default in Debian if password for root is not set) and it just needed to be set to enable it, and also guessed that administration password was just giving sudo access, my bad

[wove]

I am not having much luck getting wireless networking up and running on Trinity. However I am enjoying running the KDE edition of Debian.

[dai_trying]

I'm yet to try KDE again, but I guess I will have to try it sometime soon although I am heavily invested in XFCE to the point that any other desktop would probably be a PITA to get how I would want it. I really don't like bells and whistles which would compel me to remove/turn off many of KDE's "attractions".

I am going to see if I can get a Debian TDE machine set-up as I did like that DE, although I doubt I would also install KDE so am thinking that will bypass your wifi issue. (fingers crossed!)

[wove]

I setup Trinity on the Raspberry Pi 3B+. I installed the base Raspberry Pi image. I used the curses application called raspi-config which sets up the a lot of low level options including wifi. When I added the trinity repositories and installed Trinity, the system came up on first boot with the wifi ready and working.

BSD has bsd-config which offers the same options and I have considered giving that a try. I have hesitated to go that route for the only way to Trinity on FreeBSD is to compile it from the repositories. That route seems most suited to doing in January during a snow storm, when you are stuck inside looking for something to keep busy with.

When I started with a base Debian, it did not include stuff like sudo, git, wget. It also nothing setup in the "path" for bash. I threw in the towel. Maybe something to consider again if we get a second January blizzard.