My laptop connects quite nicely to networks, winkx, debian and Leap, however I have to manually change in Leap each and everytime.
Win 10 (winkx) seems to do it automatically, Debian asks for the password for whichever it needs at boot up and for Leap I go into Yast2 and reconfigure.
Can I create a wpa-supplicant file or a ifcfg-wlan0 file that will start at boot-up and connect to the necessary network?
The best clues I can find relate to a Raspberry Pi…
With opensuse (Leap 42.1), you can use either “wicked” or “NetworkManager” to configure your computer. Normally, after install, your system will default to using “wicked” if it is a desktop system, and to using “NetworkManager” if it is a laptop. But sometimes the installer might get that wrong.
Use: Yast → System → Network Settings
Click the “Global” tab. Near the top there should be a place where you can switch between “wicked”, “NetworkManager” and “no network”.
For easy WiFi setup, you need “NetworkManager” which is normally installed as part of your desktop environment.
You have not indicated which desktop environment you are using. “NetworkManager” should be easy enough to configure frok KDE (Plasma 5), from Gnome, from XFCE, from LXDE or from MATE. If you are using something else, best tell us what it is.
If you run into problems, then describe them. And remember to tell us which desktop environment you are using.
If you switch to NetworkManager, in place of wicked, then it will remember previously used/stored networks. And it will automatically connect if you configured that network for automatic connection (and that’s the default).
Network Manager is highly recommended to configure multiple network connections (As you’ve discovered Wicked only configures one network connection, if it’s changed the old one is lost).
The alternative if you do not have a Desktop to run NM can be to define your network connections in your wpa_supllicant.conf, the configuration is roughly XML style. If you do this, I highly recommend you connect to an open hotspot, the configuration will be automatically saved to your wpa_supplicant.conf. After that, you can use the connection as a template to construct other connections easily.
While I managed to remove Wicked, all of KDE and some of YAST2, I did not get Network Manager to install.
What a pigs ear, just de-selecting Wicked.
So I put my DVD back in, put quite a lot of stuff back in, including Network Manager.
Now Wi-Fi is back up and running, I can try and sort out the rest of the balls up (Naval term, when in shallow water put a Ball at the mast head. If you run aground you put another ball up and hope someone comes and pulls you off) around my GUI.
You should not remove wicked (this will remove half of your system including NetworkManager), and there should be no need to install NetworkManager (it should be installed by default).
Just switch between them in YaST->System->Network Settings.