Solved Firmware for wifi NIC

I was trying to get wifi working on my old (new purchase :) ... ) ThinkPad X41 but couldn't get the wifi led to come on. I did notice that I needed to add some license agreement statement to loader.conf to make it work but couldn't manage it, so gave up and tried installing Debian Linux. This informs me that I need to install some firmware (ipw220-bs.fw) to enable it. Presumably I need to do this on FreeBSD... Does the same firmware work for both FreeBSD and Debian? Where would I find it and how to load it? I suspect that if/when I find it, I just need to copy it to the correct directory (/boot/firmware ???) and it will be loaded automatically.

Any pointers would be appreciated.
 
Doing it the "balanga way" is failing to read the manuals completely, installing another OS, failing there too and starting bothering us here merging firmware from other sources and awaiting that others solve your homegrown problems.

I could easily post the complete solution here but then you won't change your habits.

Read wpi(4) carefully. It has a section FILES. Read the file mentioned there.
 
wpi(4) mentions Intel 3945ABG Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11 driver.

pciconf -lv tells me:-
iwi0@pci0:4:2:0: class=0x028000 card=0x27128086 chip=0x42208086 rev=0x05 hdr=0x00
vendor = 'Intel Corporation'
device = 'PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection'
class = network

Are these not different NICs?
 
There was a note in dmesg saying to add
legal.intel_iwi.license_ack=1
to /boot/loader.conf which I did yesterday expecting the wifi led to come on. When it didn't I installed Debian, which told me I needed to install some firmware, so I assumed I would need to do the same on FreeBSD.... However after adding
if_wpi_load="YES"
as suggested by getopt, which made no difference, I added
legal.intel_iwi.license_ack=1
and was surprised to see, when running kldstat that iwi_bss.ko appeared, so that must be the firmware required - much cleverer than Debian!
But still no wifi led... although confirmation that wifi was actualy working when I ran ifconfig wlan0 up scan and lots of SSIDs showed up.
 
You may have just helped me. Reboot time!

*Edit*
Yes, it worked AND my wifi light is SOOO BLINKY right now.
 
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