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Introducing the DreamPi Wi-Fi Setup Wizard! I developed this nice little utility which will make setting up a Wi-Fi connection on your DreamPi much easier. No more messing with configuration files! Kazade will be including this in the next version of DreamPi but for now I've made an easy-to-install package. Let me know what you think!

Update: DreamPi 1.7 is now available which includes this utility. If a newer version of wificonfig is available, you can update it using the instructions below.

Update 6/3/2019: Version 1.3 is now available. You can see the changelog here.

DOWNLOAD

Instructions (only for updating):

1. Copy the wificonfig file to the DreamPi SD card (will be labeled as "boot" when plugged into a PC).
2. On the DreamPi, login with username "pi" and password "raspberry".
3. Type "sudo cp wificonfig /usr/local/bin" and hit Enter.

Alternatively you can download and install it directly to your Pi using this command (this assumes your Pi is already connected to the internet): The program is now installed! To run it type "sudo wificonfig".

You have the following options. Type the corresponding number and hit Enter.

1. Enable Wi-Fi - Enables the Wi-Fi adapter.
2. Disable Wi-Fi - Disables the Wi-Fi adapter.
3. Add Wi-Fi Network - Adds a Wi-Fi network and enables the Wi-Fi adapter.
4. Set Country Code - Allows you to set your Country Code (for use with the Pi 3 B+ or 5GHz Wi-Fi).
5. Remove Wi-Fi Networks - Deletes all Wi-Fi networks.

Wi-Fi setup instructions:

1. Select ‘Add Wi-Fi Network’ by typing 3 and hitting Enter.
2. Select either ‘[1] Secured’ or ‘[2] Open’ depending on if your Wi-Fi network has a password or not.
3. Type in your Wi-Fi SSID (this is the name of your wireless network) and hit Enter.
4. Type in your Wi-Fi password and hit Enter.
(You will not see this step if you selected an Open network)
5. Confirm the information by typing either ‘y’ for yes or ‘n’ for no and hitting Enter.
6. Type ‘sudo reboot’ and hit Enter to restart the Pi.

Here's a one-liner to install it:

Xerxes3rd wrote:Here's a one-liner to install it

That works too.

Noice. The difficulty of wi-if setup is the reason I've been holding off on upgrading to DPi 1.6 (other than the whole "it won't even download" thing). Good to know that obstacle's out of the way.

BaffleBlend wrote:Noice. The difficulty of wi-if setup is the reason I've been holding off on upgrading to DPi 1.6

Yeah, it's always a pain to reconfigure the Wi-Fi after upgrade or re-flashing. That's one of the reasons I made this. I usually make backups of the configuration files so I can copy them back but even that is a pain.

Update: Made some minor tweaks and added support for open Wi-Fi networks. Of course it's never a good idea to have an open Wi-Fi network but this is for those of you living on the edge.

I think ideally, something like this would be the best option: https://github.com/billz/raspap-webgui

It starts up hostapd and serves up a nice GUI that you can use via any browser, which you then use to configure WiFi. I tried installing it, though, and it didn't work. I'll have to do more investigation as to why it didn't work, but it'd be awesome to have it as an option.

Xerxes3rd wrote:I think ideally, something like this would be the best option: https://github.com/billz/raspap-webgui

That assumes you're already connected to the network with your Pi. I know people that don't have physical access to their router and only have Wi-Fi. They would need to configure it on the Pi itself. If you want to make changes remotely afterwards, you can easily do so by connecting to the Pi via SSH.

pcwzrd13 wrote:That assumes you're already connected to the network with your Pi.

The idea would be that the DreamPi image ships with it installed. That way, you write the DreamPi image to SD card, power up the Pi, and the Pi runs its own WiFi access point. Then, using your PC/phone, you connect to the Pi's AP, then use your browser to reconfigure the Pi's WiFi to connect to your normal WiFi.

Another alternative that occurred to me: have a small script that starts at boot time (something in init.d) that reads WiFi config info from a text file in /boot. So, the process would be something like:

1. Download the latest DreamPi image
2. Write image to SD card.
3. Write small text file with WiFi info in /boot
4. Boot Pi with SD card
5. Script in init.d checks for existence of WiFi config file in /boot, and if it exists, configures WiFi using text file

Edit: My goal with this would be to configure the Pi's WiFi without having to console into it. =)

Ah I gotcha. Personally I don't think it's really worth it though. It will increase the size of the DreamPi image, increase boot time and potentially slow things down with the additional process running in the background. It's not like it would save all that much work. It only takes a minute to plug the Pi into a screen, log in, and quickly configure Wi-Fi with the utility.