how to connect to wpa2/peap/mschapv2 w/no ca certificate without wpa_supplicant

i have followed posts on Network Manager looping to connect to enterprise networks and coming back again and again asking for logon/password. the answer seems to be to use wpa_supplicant. i did a log file extract to confirm the process and got ...supplicant interface state: disconnected -> interface_disabled... there is a directory at /etc/wpa_supplicant, but there is no wpa_supplicant config file. the only files listed are action_wpa.sh functions.sh ifupdown.sh i guess that there are a few things i need to do? some perspective here: i am just trying to learn python, using an excellent on-line course from 'degreed' at work and doing the exercises on an old 32bit laptop running mx-linux and a compatible 32bit version of PyCharm Community Edition. my knowledge of network stuff can't fill the bottom of a thimble. so feel free to assume i haven't found the beginning of the string on this issue with logging in. any suggestions at starting points would be appreciated. thanks, ron ron@9-LPTOP:~ $ sudo journalctl -fu NetworkManager [sudo] password for ron: -- Journal begins at Tue 2023-01-24 14:43:06 EST. -- Jan 24 14:55:54 9-LPTOP NetworkManager: [1674590154.0956] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> interface_disabled Jan 24 14:55:54 9-LPTOP NetworkManager: [1674590154.0957] modem-manager: ModemManager no longer available Jan 24 14:55:54 9-LPTOP NetworkManager: [1674590154.1027] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: interface_disabled -> disconnected Jan 24 14:55:54 9-LPTOP systemd: Stopping Network Manager... Jan 24 14:55:54 9-LPTOP NetworkManager: [1674590154.5312] caught SIGTERM, shutting down normally. Jan 24 14:55:54 9-LPTOP NetworkManager: [1674590154.5338] device (wlan0): state change: disconnected -> unmanaged (reason 'unmanaged', sys-iface-state: 'managed') Jan 24 14:55:54 9-LPTOP NetworkManager: [1674590154.5468] device (wlan0): set-hw-addr: reset MAC address to 00:19:D2:05:A7:9D (unmanage) Jan 24 14:55:54 9-LPTOP NetworkManager: [1674590154.6549] exiting (success) Jan 24 14:55:54 9-LPTOP systemd: NetworkManager.service: Succeeded. Jan 24 14:55:54 9-LPTOP systemd: Stopped Network Manager.