# FreeBSD on MacBook



## perpetualcacophany (May 19, 2009)

Hello,

I am thinking about trying out FreeBSD. I am using an early-2008 MacBook (4.1) and have read the wiki concerning installation. My only question is: Is the MacBook's wireless card supported in FreeBSD? It has been a pain in the ass to get working on Gentoo Linux, but do the drivers work on FreeBSD or are there other drivers?

This is the last thing that I wanted to know before deciding whether or not to install.

Thank You


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## vivek (May 19, 2009)

My friend has Macbook. However, wireless is configured via  NDIS. See http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/config-network-setup.html


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## dthomas53 (Sep 1, 2009)

Did the OP have any luck with this? I have the same laptop and am considering dual-booting.

Thanks!


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## plamaiziere (Sep 1, 2009)

perpetualcacophany said:
			
		

> Hello,
> 
> I am thinking about trying out FreeBSD. I am using an early-2008 MacBook (4.1) and have read the wiki concerning installation. My only question is: Is the MacBook's wireless card supported in FreeBSD?



I've got a Macbook Pro (early 2008 too) and the wifi works fine under 8.0 (not with 7.X)
I don't know if the Macbook uses the same wifi card.
You can boot with the FreeBSD-8.0 fixit cd, and just see.


Here, dmesg:

```
ath0: <Atheros 5416> mem 0x97300000-0x9730ffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci11

pciconf -vl:
ath0@pci0:11:0:0:       class=0x028000 card=0x0087106b chip=0x0024168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Atheros Communications Inc.'
    device     = 'Atheros 802.11a/b/g/n (pre-N) radio (AR5008)'
    class      = network
```


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