FBSD & Broadcom BCM94306

[Kevin Oberman]

> From: Aaron Walker <ka0ttic at cfl.rr.com>
> Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 15:00:38 -0400
> Sender: owner-freebsd-mobile at freebsd.org
> 
> I installed FreeBSD (5.2.1) on a laptop for the first time yesterday and
> so far everything has worked flawlessly.
> 
> I have a HP Pavilion ze4630us that has a NatSemi 10/100 NIC as well as a
> Broadcom BCM94306 802.11g chip.  I've checked out the Hardware Notes for
> 5.2.1 and not suprisingly (since there isn't even a native linux driver
> yet) it wasn't on the list.  I am able to get the chip working under
> Linux via ndiswrapper which basically loads the windows driver for it.  
> 
> Is there anything like this available for FreeBSD?  I am crossing my
> fingers, as I don't want to have to reboot to Linux everytime I need to
> leave my desk and need network access.  Is my only alternative
> purchasing a supported 802.11g PCMCIA card?  If so, any recommendations?

I would suggest ndis. I'm not sure if ndis came to Linux or FreeBSD
first, but it's been available for available for FreeBSD for a while
thanks the the efforts of wpaul. 

If you plan to use it, you probably want to update to CURRENT, although
a few laptops are having a problem with some recent pci code, so you get
an kernel that does not see your disks (which keeps if from booting) you
might be best off updating to about 2004.04.09.15.20.00. This is about
20 mintues before Warner committed the changes . (Most systems had no
problems with this patch, but mine did. Hopefully fixed shortly.)

See man ndis for information.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634