# Newbie quesions



## sepent (Dec 7, 2009)

Hi,

I installed freebsd-8-release today and this is my first time i'm trying this os. it seems really cool, but i have 2 problems:

1)
I installed gnome by
pkg_add -r gnome2
everything seems ok, but in the "about GNOME" menu the version is: 2.26.3 (build date 10/21/09)
how can I install 2.28.1?
I tried 
pkgdb -F
portupgrade -aW
But nothing happened 


2)
I can work with gnome 2.26 but i never can work without my wireless lan card. I have a lenovo X61 with 3945ABG. after a lot of googling I ended up with "man wpi". The man page says 
"To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel configuration file...."
what does that mean? what am i suppose to do?

Any help would be much appreciated


----------



## SirDice (Dec 7, 2009)

1) update your ports tree first

2) http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-wireless.html


----------



## tkjacobsen (Dec 7, 2009)

EDIT: It's compiled for the default kernel and can be loaded as follows /EDIT

I have the exact same card, so for a quick help, I'll post you my setup:

in rc.conf:

```
wlans_wpi0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="DHCP"
```

in /boot/loader.conf:

```
if_wpi_load="YES"
wpifw_load="YES"
legal.intel_wpi.license_ack=1
```

The last line assumes you can accept the license, found in /usr/share/doc/legal/intel_wpi/LICENSE (according to the wpi manual, for some reason not on my system)


----------



## zeiz (Dec 8, 2009)

In the link SirDice posted for you there is a line in rc.conf:

```
ifconfig_ath0="DHCP"
```
The line is "a must" to connect if your ISP uses DHCP (very likely it does). You may want to check what driver do you use (if it isn't ath0) by typing in terminal:
`dmesg | grep Ethernet`
In /boot/loader.conf the follwing lines are recommended:

```
if_ath_load="YES"
wlan_scan_ap_load="YES"
wlan_scan_sta_load="YES"
```
If you want to secure your connection with WEP you may want to add to /boot/loader.conf one more line:

```
wlan_wep_load="YES"
```
All of above is from FreeBSD Handbook (the link provided by SirDice) so you may want to read it. BTW WPA security is described there too.


----------



## sepent (Dec 8, 2009)

Thank you guys, my wireless card now works fine.
It seems that FreeBSD has a good community, too.


----------

