FreeBSD 7.2-STABLE driver support on Thinkpad T500

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 3 Feb 2010, William Bulley wrote:

> My T500 has Intel 5300 (AGN) wifi hardware on-board, but it is not
> detected by any of the FreeBSD wireless device drivers I found in
> the GENERIC kernel.  I have rebuilt my kernel with all the wireless
> device drivers listed in the GENERIC kernel and am running 7.2-STABLE.
>
> Would it do any good to upgrade to 8.0-STABLE, or am I out of luck
> with this particular piece of wireless hardware?  If so, I am hoping
> that Lenovo designed the T500 with a removable wifi module so that I
> might (possibly) replace it with one supported by the ath(4) driver.

The wireless card in that system is an ordinary mini-PCI-e:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-71353

Be aware that IBM used to have a system BIOS that only allowed certain 
approved wireless cards.  I don't know if that's still the case.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA