[octotoad]

Its standard ifconfig handles all the equivalent functionality.

[dTal]

I don't use OpenBSD for various functionality-related reasons, but experiencing that was an eye-opener. It makes me mad that Linux doesn't use such a clearly superior system, and leads one to wonder what other needlessly complex interfaces we put up with unquestioningly.

[microcolonel]

There are things other than wpa_supplicant, but wpa_supplicant is just sorta "good enough", everything generally works. It's a different approach.

For me, my OpenBSD moment was when I used the backlight brightness keys on a laptop in a vt, and it Just Worked™.

[adrianratnapala]

I would put it the other way around. wpa_supplicant is actually very good at doing what it does. But rolling it's functionality into ifconfig is probably "good enough".

wpa_supplicant is an application of the "do one thing" philosophy. The kernel provides a some basic hardware-abstracted plumbing which lets a specialist tool do all the complicated handshaking and what-not for wireless.

This saves the basic tools (ifconfig, ip) from having to build in all that wireless complexity. But it does introduce an extra moving part that has to be configured. For this reason, just bloating it into the basic tool is likely to be good enough, and also provider a superior UX (for nerds like us).

[throwaway2048]

This isn't quite accurate, you need wpa_supplicant for 802.1X authentication aka "WPA Enterprise" (typically only really seen in schools or very corporate environments).

But on OpenBSD thats the only thing it handles, its not an otherwise generic WiFi manager like on linux.