I have just bought a new box which has a wi-fi card.
Amd with Slackware current.
can anyone point me to clear and precise instructions on how to start wi-fi before X starts or at least before browsers and email programs start.
thanks.

Dear nyloc,
I am on a debian, hopefully you can use something below
clear and precise intructions.

you need 4 steps

• a driver in your kernel
• your wifi card up
• your wifi card managed
• an ip assigned to your wifi

PREREQUISITES
you wrote before starting X, that means that you are in CLI, you are not in graphic mode. Runlevel = 3;
user has sudo or you are running the next points as "root"

1. make your box to recognize the wifi card, that is find the driver.
if it is already in the kernel these commands will tell us
what does it say? , before it was used and , but in some distributions they are deprecated.
what does it say? what does it say? 2.1 If "ip a" says "UP"

3. make your wifi "managed"
use wpa_supplicant for this

2.2 if "ip a" says "DOWN"
try
4. assign an ip to your device with dhcpd or similar client program, the goal of this is that you are requesting to your route a dinamic Ip address

you can read my blog here specially the last part where it says slax.org and 4 pieces of code.

HINT
ip will help you if you do it like so
first typè then click tabulator, it will suggest what is available
then the next command + tabulator , next + tabulator
ip should suggest what devices are available

Come back to me if you have further questions or search for words in the net like "wpa_supplicant"

The wi-fi works with Slackware.
My issue is after X is started I then have to click the net applet icon, click the wi-fi I want, enter a password then wait for the wi-fi to connect. Then I can run programs that access the net.
With ethernet the connection is ready before starting X, so why cant I do that with wi-fi?

Did you read the Slackware wifi documentation?

https://docs.slackware.com/slackbook:wifi

When you open the Network Manager applet, click on the General tab and there is an option to allow all users access, or something similar.

Dear nyloc,
not sure the technical reason, but it is exactly as you write.
Ethernet will find your router without you doing nothing, maybe because the cable finish in the router and is only one way how to get to it.
However wifi waves will search for ESSID (=routers like available = devices able to transmit internet) and in order to avoid other not wanted to connect to your router are used passwords.
In order to connect to your router you need a program to send your password to the device and this program is your net applet icon.
please let me know if your question is answered.
Regars,
T.

Since your computer is already set up for Network Manager, try nmcli or nmtui.

Most systems will automatically reconnect to an AP if the connections has been made and is remembered. On mine I have to explicitly tell it to "forget" a connection or it remains available forever.

There is also an option to tell it to automatically reconnect, and I always have that set for any location I plan to have access to in the future (especially home and work).

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Lots to look at there. Thanks to all.