Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't cloud init just slurping its own config file, then generating the "real" config files and slurping those into the right spaces? To me, "copies a file named wpa_supplicant.conf from /boot to /etc on first init" is simpler than "parses some yaml, the generates /etc/wpa_supplicant". Maybe I'd find it worthwhile if I had encountered cloud init years ago before I invested in learning the other 900 linux networking c…
Cloud init is a tool with documentation and a file format for config, that’s used all over the place. I’m not making the case that it’s better, just that it’s no more “black magic” than wpa_supplicant’s config file is, and it’s less magical than dropping a wpa_supplicant file into /boot and the raspberry pi doing a bespoke RPi-specific shuffle to move it into place.
https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-imager/blob/5aeb98e976326...