# DW1501 wireless not working



## wez (Dec 16, 2012)

Hello, I have a new computer made by Dell which uses the DW1501 wireless card. I was disappointed that I could not run FreeBSD on it because there is no support yet implemented for the card, although there is an open source driver called brcmsmac which supports it. The driver incorporates a BSD-style license which allows it to be easily shipped/modified for FreeBSD. My question is can someone please find a way to port this driver to FreeBSD? I haven't the time or money to purchase a new card at this point in time. Can someone please help?


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## wez (Dec 16, 2012)

*UPDATE:* The bwn source code has not been modified for 2 years. No wonder it doesn't do anything except being able to scan for networks on my other laptop(made in late 2009 with a DW1397).


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## wblock@ (Dec 16, 2012)

Broadcom announced that they were going to be more open-source a while back.  Seems like there is even a Broadcom employee on at least one of the mailing lists.  No idea whether they are concerned about wireless.  It might be worth contacting them, although don't expect anything to happen in the short term.


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