I'll have to play with it to see how it works with Livesectional. This won't be anything that happens soon though. So I would suggest you use Raspi-Config to set your wifi. If you need info on using it, there are many tutorials that will help you. I'll be happy to try to answer your questions as well. - Mark

Could this be "baked" into the image so it sits on the Pi when we flash a new image to our SD cards?

As far as an alternative, I'd suggest using raspi-config to set up your wifi. If you would like information on how to use it check out; https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html

There are other tutorials and vids available as well.

I'll try to help too, if you need it. - Mark

The basic process requires upgrading wpa_supplicant to a later version, and then configuring it so that it grabs the configured username and password from the configuration file and correctly gets an address from DHCP.  Here's a brief setup.

1. Update system libraries.  The version of Raspbian on the LiveSectional image is old enough that it's no longer actively maintained.  To get the old packages we need, it's necessary to switch to the legacy mirror for buster libraries.  In /etc/apt/sources.list, add the legacy mirror by adding this line to the bottom of the file.  (There's some small risk here because the repos added cryptographic auth in later versions, but I'm doing this in a hacky proof-of-concept way.)

deb http://legacy.raspbian.org/raspbian/ buster main contrib non-free rpi

Once you've added the legacy repo, update the package list, and then install some supporting libraries:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install libnl-3-dev
$ sudo apt install libnl-genl-3-dev
$ sudo apt install libdbus-1-dev
$ sudo apt install libnl-route-3-dev

These libraries are needed to build wpa_supplicant from source, and because they're dynamically linked, they need to be available at runtime.

2.  Update wpa_supplicant.  The underlying version of Raspbian that LiveSectional is based on contains a development version of 2.8 from 2019 (plus some patches), which seems to have a bug in the key negotiation.  I updated this to version 2.11, found here: https://w1.fi/wpa_supplicant/

Basically, get the source code, run make, and wait a long time since the Pi Zero is slow.  Go get your coffee.  To install the new version, I copied the compiled versions over the distribution version:

$ cd /sbin
$ sudo cp wpa_supplicant wpa_supplicant-dist
$ sudo cp wpa_cli wpa_cli-dist
$ sudo cp ~/wpa_supplicant-2.11/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant wpa_supplicant-2.11
$ sudo cp ~/wpa_supplicant-2.11/wpa_supplicant/wpa_cli-2.11j
$ sudo cp wpa_supplicant-2.11 wpa_supplicant
$ sudo cp wpa_cli-2.11 wpa_cli

3. Configure wpa_supplicant.  To configure for your username and password, edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf with your network information.  You should add certificates to validate your RADIUS server here, but that's another step I'm still working on.  If you don't add certificates, the Pi will accept any RADIUS server.

network={
        ssid="YOUR_SSID_NAME"
        key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
        pairwise=CCMP
        eap=PEAP
        identity="YOUR_USERNAME"
        password="YOUR_PASSWORD"
}

4. Configure system networking.  In /etc/network/interfaces, tell the system that wlan0 is a hotplug interface created when the driver loads, and that you should configure it with DHCP, and point it at the supplicant configuration file:

allow-hotplug wlan0
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
    wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

In /etc/wpa_supplicant/functions.sh, add a -c to the configuration file option in the command line so it's actually processed.  (There might be an elegant way to do this, but I am not sure what it is.)

Find the line that reads like this:

wpa_msg verbose "$WPA_SUP_BIN $WPA_SUP_OPTIONS $WPA_SUP_CONF"

Then add a -c for the supplicant configuration file variable, WPA_SUP_CONF:

wpa_msg verbose "$WPA_SUP_BIN $WPA_SUP_OPTIONS -c $WPA_SUP_CONF"

Berrylan changed its name and web presence seemingly to just a Github repository; https://github.com/nymea/berrylan. You can try to follow the instructions there to see if it can find your build.

My suggestion would be to connect a keyboard and monitor and at the cmd line type;

sudo raspi-config

This will bring up the raspi configurator and under system you can enter the SSID and password, then reboot. I've had the most success doing it this way.

If this doesn't work, bounce back and I'll try to help any way I can.

Mark

after flashing the image I have been unable to get the pi to connect to the internet , I am unable to find it using berrylan.

i have tried adding the wpa supplicant file as well as flashing and formatting the card multiple time to no avail. I also tried all the steps on a Mac and a PC and I bought a raspberry pi 4 to see if maybe my pi zero w was a bad board but I cannot seem to get the pi4 to be found using berrylan either with the flashed image. 

I also tried using the raspberry pi image tool after I was not having success with balance etcher. 

the power cord is good, I’m confused as to what the next step is to get this thing up and running again