# Ports collection and drivers



## kr651129 (Jun 20, 2012)

I have a weird question -- I just installed FreeBSD on a new machine and I'm using a WiFi card that I pulled from another machine.  When I installed FreeBSD on the old machine the installer saw the card and I was able to use it from install forward, but I installed ports at the time.  The new machine I did not install ports because I decided to grab the latest via cvsup but it only saw my ethernet card.  The machine does see it though because I've found it in pciconf.

Thoughts?


```
$ pciconf -lv
hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Broadcom Corporation'
    device     = 'BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY'
    class      = network
mskc0@pci0:9:0:0:	class=0x020000 card=0x02aa1028 chip=0x435411ab rev=0x13
```


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## wblock@ (Jun 20, 2012)

Broadcom cards need firmware installed from ports.  See bwi(4) and bwn(4).


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## kr651129 (Jun 20, 2012)

wblock -- yeah I was working on that last night, I'm not in front of my PC right now so I can't give the exact messages (I will later).

But I did compile bwn into my kernel, I added it into my /boot/loader.conf I can see bwn0 in *ifconfig* but I can't configure it.  When my machine powers on I see a message along the lines of 
	
	



```
bwn0: can't load fw (some more specific text here) file
```

Before I left for work I found a post (which I'll add when I edit this later) that told me to download some files and recompile, which I'll try.


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## SirDice (Jun 20, 2012)

kr651129 said:
			
		

> But I did compile bwn into my kernel, I added it into my /boot/loader.conf I can see bwn0 in ifconfig but I can't configure it.  When my machine powers on I see a message along the lines of "bwn0: can't load fw (some more specific text here) file"





> This driver requires firmware to be loaded before it will work.  The net/bwn-firmware-kmod port needs to be installed before ifconfig(8) will work.


Taken from bwn(4).


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## kr651129 (Jun 20, 2012)

That's the only thing that confuses me -- I did install net/bwn-firmware-kmod but I'm unsure if all I need to do is install or install and configure that port?


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## wblock@ (Jun 20, 2012)

Hmm.  I thought there was a pkg-message that told what to do with those ports.  Please notify the port maintainer.

Anyway, those ports build kernel modules with the firmware.  The right one of those modules has to be kldload(8)ed for bwn(4) to work.  (How to know which one is right?  Try one and look at the output in /var/log/messages.  Error messages will be shown if it's the wrong firmware.)


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## kr651129 (Jun 20, 2012)

Thanks wblock, I let the maintainer know and I'll try this when I get home tonight and post my results.


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## swhetzel (Jun 20, 2012)

kr651129 said:
			
		

> Thanks wblock, I let the maintainer know and I'll try this when I get home tonight and post my results.



To use the kernel module created in net/bwn-firmware-kmod, you will need to load the module:

```
# kldload ssb
# kldload bwn_v4_ucode
# kldload if_bwn
```

or in /boot/loader.conf:

```
bwn_v4_ucode_load="yes"
if_bwn_load="yes"
```

Note: If you are a LP (low power) PHY user, use the bwn_v4_lp_ucode module instead.

Scot


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## wblock@ (Jun 20, 2012)

Adding that to a pkg-message for those ports would be helpful to many users.


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## kr651129 (Jun 21, 2012)

These instructions worked for me




			
				unsobill said:
			
		

> to get ur card working follow this...
> 
> 1) Install the siba driver
> go to:
> ...


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## kr651129 (Jun 21, 2012)

After all of that work I ended up being so fed up with the poor Broadcom performance I removed the card and went and got another.


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