# Wifi card.



## Harry_the_rat (Aug 29, 2012)

Hi all, i've never tried wifi with FreeBSD and i'm try a pci card which doesn't seem to get picked up. My card is 

Broadcom Corporation.
BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller.

And was wondering if anyone has managed to get this card working, also is there a list of known wireless card that are compatible with FreeBSD?
Thanks.


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## SirDice (Aug 29, 2012)

Try the bwi(4) or bwn(4) driver (both require a port to be installed for the firmware, see the man pages for details). If they don't work then I'm afraid you're out of luck. In that case you could try ndisgen(8) and use the Windows driver.


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## Harry_the_rat (Aug 29, 2012)

To load the drivers I should use 
kldload bwi or bwn?

I'm getting error... 

kldload: can't loadbwi: No such file or directory


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## wblock@ (Aug 29, 2012)

Network modules have an "if_" prefix, so use
`# kldload if_bwn`

bwi(4) is for older cards, bwn(4) for newer ones.  Read the man page for the module, because it describes the firmware port that must be installed for it to work.  That firmware has to be loaded (usually in /boot/loader.conf) before the card will work.


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## Harry_the_rat (Aug 29, 2012)

I've tried to install bwi-firmware-kmod in the ports and also by *pkg_add -r*. But it wont install, when I type make in the port bwi-firmware-kmod it fails on *gmake* with error code 1.


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## Harry_the_rat (Aug 29, 2012)

I'm using FreeBSD 9.0


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## wblock@ (Aug 29, 2012)

Probably the license prevents a package.  Not enough of an error message to tell why the port won't build, probably you have an old version of the ports tree.

Atheros cards are the best supported on FreeBSD.  Last I saw, the AR9280 (AR5BXB72 and AR5BXB92) was recommended.  Oddly enough, I have one of those, but haven't really tested it much.


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## Harry_the_rat (Aug 29, 2012)

Sorry, must be my error, sync my time and it worked? Although to try another port irssi worked before I updated my clock?

These are the commands I've used.

```
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev bwi0
ifconfig  wlan0 up scan
```
But I don't see my AP. Am I doing anything wrong? I presume it's working with the firmware else it wouldn't let me create wlan0?


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## wblock@ (Aug 29, 2012)

I don't know what the Broadcom stuff does, been avoiding those cards for quite some time now.  It might create wlan0 without firmware.  The driver might autoload the firmware.  Is the SSID of your access point "hidden"?


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## Harry_the_rat (Aug 31, 2012)

Well i've tried another card, Ralink USB and it seems to work. It picks up my AP, now to try connecting with wpa.


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## wblock@ (Aug 31, 2012)

Quick Wireless Setup On FreeBSD.


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