# Help with installing wifi driver



## erdos (Jun 6, 2015)

hello

I just installed 10.1 on my old Thinkpad t23.  I have a Netgear WG511 wifi card for it. In Debian Linux, I used 'prism54pci' for it.  But I couldn't find a driver for 10.1.  

Is this card supported?


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## wblock@ (Jun 6, 2015)

That is a really old card.  The wi(4) driver might support it, though.


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## shepper (Jun 6, 2015)

The prism54 driver is available in Linux and OpenBSD and requires firmware.
They were solid cards that supported b/g transmission rates with WPA although they tended to run a little hot.  Wireless cards tend to be inexpensive and if running FreeBSD is a priority, you should be able to find a compatible card for under 20USD.


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## Crivens (Jun 7, 2015)

shepper, the problem with laptops is that some will refuse to work if you change the wireless hardware because the IDs are hard coded into the BIOS.


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## shepper (Jun 7, 2015)

The original post said an "Old" Thinkpad T23.  These have pcmcia slots.  There is an issue with some atheros cards that are coded as NIC's.  I also think the T23 preceeded the evils of hard coded product ID's


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## erdos (Jun 7, 2015)

shepper said:


> The prism54 driver is available in Linux and OpenBSD and requires firmware.
> They were solid cards that supported b/g transmission rates with WPA although they tended to run a little hot.  Wireless cards tend to be inexpensive and if running FreeBSD is a priority, you should be able to find a compatible card for under 20USD.




That's correct:  Netgear WG511 is a pcmcia NIC card.

how do I find this driver?  I use: `pkg search prism54`  but it came up nothing.

I haven't tried wi(4), but I've read it only supports 802.11b while WG511 card supports 802.11 b/g. I'm not sure how to install it in FreeBSD either.


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## shepper (Jun 7, 2015)

There is no driver - FreeBSD does not support your Netgear WG511.  wi(4) will not work.
If your budget is limited and your goal is to try a BSD I would install OpenBSD.  If you are focused on FreeBSD you would need to find an ath(4) or  ral(4) based pcmcia card.  Given the issues with atheros ethernet conflicts, I would look for an ralink based card. These can be found on the used market.  There is also Broadcom usb dongle that is popular for wireless connectivity in older laptops.


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## protocelt (Jun 7, 2015)

Another option is using an old wireless router you may have and not be using by configuring it to wireless bridge mode if both it and the main router support it. You can just use the Ethernet port on the notebook to connect then. A bit clunky but it would work.


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## tobik@ (Jun 7, 2015)

If you have a Windows XP driver for your card, you can also try using ndis(4). See https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.I...config-network-setup.html#config-network-ndis


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## erdos (Jun 9, 2015)

tobik said:


> If you have a Windows XP driver for your card, you can also try using ndis(4). See https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.I...config-network-setup.html#config-network-ndis



Thanks, ndis(4) doesn't work well.

I know how to setup bridge router, but it's troublesome.  

I appreciate the help, I'm going back to Linux on this laptop, it's not good if I can't get the wifi working properly


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