Solved Help to identify the Wireless board

marcelohsp

marcelohsp

Hello!
I've just installed FreeBSD 13.2 on my ThinkPad laptop. I'm having some trouble trying to identify my Wireless board to configure the rc.conf file, to activate the board while starting the system. If I run the command "sysctl net.wlan.devices", the output doesn't show me anything ("net.wlan.devices:").
Here is my 'dmesg | more' output: https://bpa.st/UKZQ
Please, I need some help to proceed with wpa_supplicant configuration.
 
Found this info in your dmesg file: re0: <RealTek 8168/8111 B/C/CP/D/DP/E/F/G PCIe Gigabit Ethernet> port 0x3000-0x30ff mem 0xfd504000-0xfd504fff,0xfd500000-0xfd503fff at device 0.0 on pci2. You can also check it with the following command: pciconf -lv
 
The fact that the device isn't listed in dmesg, suggests that either the driver isn't loaded (iwlwifi, maybe?) or the hardware is unsupported. As above, pciconf will list devices on the pci bus. Also run usbconfig to see if it's on the usb bus. Some laptops have their wifi nic on the usb bus.

What kind of thinkpad is it? You may find a spec sheet for it. Tough, that's not entirely reliable. Laptop manufacturers source parts from various suppliers.

If your wifi card is unsupported, a possible solution may be to replace it. I've got three of them for my laptop and have ordered another one (to try to reproduce a bug in a PR). WiFi cards are cheap (this one, an Atheros, is $25). One caveat though, the laptop's BIOS will not recognize it but FreeBSD will. So will Windows once the correct driver is loaded.
 
cy@ said:
The fact that the device isn't listed in dmesg, suggests that either the driver isn't loaded (iwlwifi, maybe?) or the hardware is unsupported. As above, pciconf will list devices on the pci bus. Also run usbconfig to see if it's on the usb bus. Some laptops have their wifi nic on the usb bus.

What kind of thinkpad is it? You may find a spec sheet for it. Tough, that's not entirely reliable. Laptop manufacturers source parts from various suppliers.

If your wifi card is unsupported, a possible solution may be to replace it. I've got three of them for my laptop and have ordered another one (to try to reproduce a bug in a PR). WiFi cards are cheap (this one, an Atheros, is $25). One caveat though, the laptop's BIOS will not recognize it but FreeBSD will. So will Windows once the correct driver is loaded.
Click to expand...

As you can see, my pciconf -lv output shows me the following devices: https://bpa.st/BB5Q
There is the 'none2'

Code: 
none2@pci0:3:0:0:    class=0x028000 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x10ec device=0x8852 subvendor=0x17aa subdevice=0x4852
    vendor     = 'Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.'
    device     = 'RTL8852AE 802.11ax PCIe Wireless Network Adapter'
    class      = network

I've just checked this page: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops#T-Z my thinkpad is the E14. It seems not to have the wifi driver adapter. The only way I can use Wifi, in this case, is buying a new card, right?
 
There's work on getting in mt76 chipset support but that's likely a least a few months away. To my knowledge only rather old Intel Wifi controllers work somewhat reliable but they're unlikely to even fit in your PC as most are Mini PCIe and not M.2. Wifi support in FreeBSD is still poor and given it's 2024 you'd want at least 11ac or 11ax but that's supported. There's https://www.freshports.org/net/wifibox/ though....
Supported Atheros hardware is ancient and EOL, I don't even think WPA3 support is available in Widnows and it wont fit your laptop.
 
marcelohsp said:
I've just checked this page: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops#T-Z my thinkpad is the E14. It seems not to have the wifi driver adapter. The only way I can use Wifi, in this case, is buying a new card, right?
Click to expand...

You need to check whether your current adapter is a M.2 adapter that you can change. If so then buy

A M.2 adapter typically works better than USB since it has access to a bigger antenna.
 
marcelohsp said:
As you can see, my pciconf -lv output shows me the following devices: https://bpa.st/BB5Q
There is the 'none2'

none2@pci0:3:0:0: class=0x028000 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x10ec device=0x8852 subvendor=0x17aa subdevice=0x4852 vendor = 'Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.' device = 'RTL8852AE 802.11ax PCIe Wireless Network Adapter' class = network

I've just checked this page: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops#T-Z my thinkpad is the E14. It seems not to have the wifi driver adapter. The only way I can use Wifi, in this case, is buying a new card, right?
Click to expand...
It in main but disconnected from the build. See https://people.freebsd.org/~bz/wireless/ and https://wiki.freebsd.org/WiFi/Rtw89.

I doubt you'll be able to build it on any -RELEASE or -STABLE.
 
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