# New to FreeBSD (Intel 5100 wifi)



## geek_nomad (Apr 24, 2010)

Hi. I'm thinking of installing freebsd in my laptop tdy. The only thing thats stopping me from installing is i'm not if my wifi card will work in freebsd. I'm using Intel 5100 wifi link. I looked at the hardware notes and i couldn't find my card in the list of supported cards. So will my card work under freebsd? if yes, can you pls explain how to or provide resources where i can make it work on my own? I also have mobile internet (internet from a network provider). Don't know how to explain it. But i'm guessing you understand what i'm talking about. Anyway, i get that to work using wvdial under linux. Can i get it to work under freebsd? Do i have to use wvdial or is there any other way to do it? Any kind of help or information will do. I really want to give freebsd a try and hopefully use it.


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## fronclynne (Apr 25, 2010)

Looks like you need to update the driver or run -STABLE: see [thread=8041]here[/thread].  Note that if you wait for 8.1-RELEASE, the driver should work "out of the box" (as they say in ancient Scotland).


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## geek_nomad (Apr 26, 2010)

Thanks for the reply. Stable in the sense, do i have to use stable version of freebsd? The thing is the only way i can use internet is by using wifi (but i dont have the drivers) or by using my mobile internet(which i have no idea how to connect).So it would be great if you can help me with any one of these. Pls provide step by step instructions if you can. Thanks


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## fronclynne (Apr 26, 2010)

*I hope.  Oh man, do all of my BACs hope.*

I'm pretty sure your "mobile internet" is not supported by freebsd (if it's some special USB/PCMCIA doo-hickey your internet provider sent you I'm pretty sure we don't) (PS I welcome being corrected/contradicted/wrong on this, but I'm not aware of it).

For your wireless, I'm a bit deep into my gin to provide solid advice (& step by step instructions that don't involve curses and punching things), but it _might_ (read: probably will) work to install a -STABLE snapshot.  http://www.freebsd.org/snapshots/  Find a nearby mirror with http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html and go to ftp://[red]YOURMIRRORHERE[/red].freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots , use either the i386-disc1 or amd64-disc1 (per Thread 1940), and follow Thread 8785 to enable wireless.


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## geek_nomad (Apr 26, 2010)

about the mobile internet, its actually gprs internet and i searched in google. seem i have to connect it through ppp. any help with that?


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## thuglife (Apr 26, 2010)

u3g(4)
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/userppp.html

If your card is supported you will have to make some trivial changes at your /etc/ppp/ppp.conf

Everything ok with your wireless?


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## geek_nomad (Apr 26, 2010)

Gpt the gprs internet thing to work. but its slower than in fedora.
About the wireless, i'm gonna try it now. Hoping everything will go well..


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## geek_nomad (Apr 27, 2010)

i installed subversion to install thw wireless driver.
but when i use the svn command, i'm getting "command not found" error.


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## geek_nomad (Apr 27, 2010)

worked out the svn problem. i followed the instructions from the thread you mentioned earlier to install the wireless driver.
i'm getting a long list of errors when compiling iwn.


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## thuglife (Apr 27, 2010)

Run rehash after software installation.

See post #16, if you are still having problems post the output.


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## geek_nomad (Apr 28, 2010)

Ok. Managed to compile and install the wireless driver. What should i do next to connect?


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## geek_nomad (Apr 28, 2010)

These were the steps i tried.


[cmd=]kldload if_iwn[/cmd]

my wireless light started blinking and then

[cmd=]ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev iwn0[/cmd]

i get this


```
ifconfig: create: bad value
```


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## bschmidt (Apr 28, 2010)

Please post your `# ifconfig -a``# dmesg | grep iwn` and `# pciconf -lv`.


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## geek_nomad (May 4, 2010)

got it to work. thanks.


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