# Wireless hardware for FreeBSD 7



## blumstng (Oct 12, 2009)

I have FreeBSD 7 and I want to install a PCI wireless card.  Before I spend money on a card, I want to know that it will work.  I've looked at some docs online and have found chipsets that say they work, but most manufacturers don't list what chipset they use for a specific card.  I've looked here, and can't seem to find a good answer.  Anyone know of a hardware compatibility list I could check out?


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## blstuart (Oct 12, 2009)

I've found that if I google for the name of a device and the word chipset, it's pretty common that someone out there has identified it.  I just went through a similar exercise for USB wireless devices (and found that different versions of the Belkin F5D7050 have different chipsets).  The ral(4) man page has a pretty good list of cards supported by that driver, and the Athros chipsets seem to be well-supported.


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## SirDice (Oct 12, 2009)

blstuart said:
			
		

> and the Athros chipsets seem to be well-supported.


It has quite good support but keep in mind that not _all_ atheros chipsets are supported.

The WPC54AG and WMP54AG work for me. But they are 'only' 802.11g (54Mbit/s).


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## blumstng (Oct 12, 2009)

Okay.  Thanks for your input.  I'll try searching with the word chipset in the query.  And, I've heard about the Atheros chipsets.  I'll look into that more.


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## blumstng (Oct 13, 2009)

Okay.  I've been able to find a lot more information about specific cards and chipsets.  However, what I now need to know is what chipsets are supported by the drivers that are supported in the BSD 7 kernel?  How can I find that information?

I am still fairly new to BSD, so I'm wondering how I can look it up.


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## blstuart (Oct 13, 2009)

Most of the driver man pages list the chipsets they support.  Appropos wireless will get you a list of man pages with the keyword wireless, and those in section 4 are drivers.  So for the Athros, for example, the first paragraph of the description lists the AR5210, AR5211, and AR5212 chips as being supported (in the 7.2 man page).


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