# mini PCI Express wireless LAN



## mephju (Sep 6, 2009)

Hi ppl,

I got a Lenovo G530 notebook with Broadcom 43xx Wlan chip. I know that some cards will be supported in 8.0 but unfortunately not the one I have. So I am looking for a new card. I figured this is rather difficult because I cant find any supported mini PCI express card in this list: http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.2R/hardware.html#WLAN . 

I want to use this card in an EDUROAM environment at my campus as well so I need WPA2 and TTLS compatibility.

Amazon.de (since I am from Germany) offers some cheap and feature-rich cards from Intel but I can't find them in the list.

What would you recommend. What am I supposed to do? Your help would be really appreciated.


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## paradox (Sep 6, 2009)

why you not use the ndis


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## mephju (Sep 7, 2009)

I'd love to deploy the ndiswrapper but I am afraid that not all features will be available. As I said I am going to need WPA2 and TTLS. I assumed that these won't be available. Please tell me I am wrong so I won't have to purchase a new card. 

Anyway thanks for your help 

CU


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## paradox (Sep 7, 2009)

WPA2 works
what is the TTLS ?


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## mephju (Sep 7, 2009)

WPA2 works? That's great news. 
TTLS refers to EAP-TTLS and is as far as I know needed for authentication in an EDUROAM environment. 
It's the same as EAP-TLS but no certificate is needed. Instead it is sufficient to provide a username and password combo. I guess you could still use a certificate to increase security.

I just looked a bit around and figured that authentication is a matter of wpa-supplicant or something similar like this. So authentication doesn't involve the driver right?


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## paradox (Sep 7, 2009)

```
man wpa_supplicant.conf
```



> I just looked a bit around and figured that authentication is a matter of wpa-supplicant or something similar like this. So authentication doesn't involve the driver right?


and some a part driver too


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## wblock@ (Sep 8, 2009)

The Atheros card in my Acer Aspire One is mini-PCIe, and works fine.  At least with WPA2-PSK.  I'm pretty sure it's an AR5BXB63.  They're all over ebay, but not that easy to find elsewhere.  I think these are equivalent:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=WN6301A-BULK&cat=WLS
http://www.oxfordtec.com/us/p226/SparkLAN-WPEA-166G-miniPCI-Wireless-card---Atheros-AR5006EG-AR2425-Single-Chip-Solution-mini-PCI-E,-mPCIe-adapter/product_info.html

From my limited experience, I'd avoid Broadcom cards.  The Broadcom 4312 in another notebook has never worked under FreeBSD, either with native or NDIS drivers.  Intel cards are better, but it seems like Atheros is the way to go.


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## wblock@ (Sep 8, 2009)

wblock said:
			
		

> The Atheros card in my Acer Aspire One is mini-PCIe, and works fine.  At least with WPA2-PSK.  I'm pretty sure it's an AR5BXB63.  They're all over ebay, but not that easy to find elsewhere.  I think these are equivalent:
> 
> http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=WN6301A-BULK&cat=WLS
> http://www.oxfordtec.com/us/p226/SparkLAN-WPEA-166G-miniPCI-Wireless-card---Atheros-AR5006EG-AR2425-Single-Chip-Solution-mini-PCI-E,-mPCIe-adapter/product_info.html
> ...



Forgot to mention that the machines with mini PCI-e I've tried both have 8-STABLE.


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