Intel IWD Wireless Daemon v0.4 Released With New Features

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel IWD Wireless Daemon v0.4 Released With New Features

Out today is a new release of the Intel IWD network stack, the wireless daemon hoping to eventually replace WPA Supplicant...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-IWD-0.4-Relased

[Sonadow]

Can some kind soul provide an idiot-friendly writeup on how IWD should be used via the CLI?

The README file is totally useless and I have no desire to compile + install it into /usr/lib64 and /usr/bin without first knowing how a user is supposed to run it. And I know that it needs to be installed to the root directories as nothing worked when I first tried building and install IWD into a subdirectory in my /home.

[starshipeleven]

Can some kind soul provide an idiot-friendly writeup on how IWD should be used via the CLI?

The README file is totally useless and I have no desire to compile + install it into /usr/lib64 and /usr/bin without first knowing how a user is supposed to run it.

Did you check Arch Wiki? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Iwd
and its page in the kernel wiki https://iwd.wiki.kernel.org/gettingstarted
Sounds like it's a piece of cake to use.

And I know that it needs to be installed to the root directories as nothing worked when I first tried building and install IWD into a subdirectory in my /home.

chroot is your friend for these things.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Damn, I hoped this is driver for Dell Wireless Dock and HP Advanced Wireless Dock (this hardware is based on Intel Wireless Dock 802.11ad technology).

[starshipeleven]

Damn, I hoped this is driver for Dell Wireless Dock and HP Advanced Wireless Dock (this hardware is based on Intel Wireless Dock 802.11ad technology).

Oooh, that's neat. What is a wireless connection that has very high bandwith but only at point-blank range? Wifi ac! Wifi ac! Good to see they are at least doing something cool with it.

[aorth]

Did you check Arch Wiki? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Iwd
and its page in the kernel wiki https://iwd.wiki.kernel.org/gettingstarted
Sounds like it's a piece of cake to use.

Yeah, I've been using it with NetworkManager for a few months on Arch. I have had zero issues... pleasantly surprised. My Wi-Fi experience is neither better nor worse. I just take the IWD authors at their word that replacing wpa_supplicant is a good thing!

[starshipeleven]

I just take the IWD authors at their word that replacing wpa_supplicant is a good thing!

I've used wpa_supplicant directly in embedded projects. The horror. The pain. The WTF!? moments. The hacky scripts to keep alive connections or do anything with it really.

NetworkManager does a ton of leg work that wpa_supplicant does not do on its own. IWD is a a self-sufficient thing. I fully support replacing wpa_supplicant once IWD reaches feature parity (don't know the status, didn't check).

[mskarbek]

I fully support replacing wpa_supplicant once IWD reaches feature parity (don't know the status, didn't check).

For normal day-to-day home usage scenario works perfectly fine without issue.

[starshipeleven]

For normal day-to-day home usage scenario works perfectly fine without issue.

yeah I didn't mean it's buggy. I meant that it lacks functionality that imho on modern systems you take for granted, and overall it does all it can to be a dumb tool with no initiative whatsoever, by design.

For example, it does not reconnect automatically if wifi connection drops, it does not connect automatically to wifi you want to connect automatically to. It's a 100% dumb tool, which means that any smarts must be in the caller, usually scripts in some hotplug detection daemon or something.

That's the "old school" of linux/unix stuff, a bunch of dumb tools woven together by scripts. I've seen the pitfalls of that approach enough. Everyone reinventing wheels over and over in their scripts or control programs and stuff until some hotplug detection daemons came around and then it becomes a de-facto dependency.

Meanwhile, IWD does that on its own, no questions asked (you can configure it to not autoconnect, of course). I mean it's supposed to deal with wifi right? It's not like it's breaking any Unix phylosophy if it does that without requiring external support and babysitting.

[Ericg]

With today's IWD 0.4 release there is now support for advanced scanning of hidden networks, MAC address randomization, ad-hot network interface support

Michael ad-hoc, maybe?