8.0 also includes the VAP (virtual access point) stuff, which splits all wireless drivers into two parts: the hardware interface and the virtual interface(s).
Whereas in FreeBSD <= 7 you manipulate the wireless interface directly (ath0, wi0, wpi0, etc), in FreeBSD 8+ you first clone the interface and then manipulate the cloned interface.
You'll have something like an ath0 (the hardware interface) that you clone into a wlan0 (or whatever you want to call it). Then you configure the wlan0 interface.
There should be comments in /etc/defaults/rc.conf that cover this. If not, have a look at the man page for
ath(4). From the man page, the important part is this:
# ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0
Some other changes also happened with regards to the HAL and the rate modules. IIRC, the rate modules were incorporated into the HAL module, so you don't load anything with _rate_ in the name (you still have to specify it in the kernel config if you are compiling the drivers into the kernel).
Browsing through the SVN repo for commits from Sam Leffler, I believe the following are what you need for an Atheros card:
/boot/loader.conf
/etc/rc.conf
Code:
wlans_ath0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"
/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
<The same settings you used before>
After booting, you should see wlan0 connect and get an IP.
Or, you can do it manually (after editing the above files):
Code:
# kldload if_ath
# ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0
# /etc/rc.d/netif start wlan0
(Note: none of the above has been tested, as I do not have any 8.x systems. I've just done some googling and mailing list reading.)