Two weeks ago I installed FreeBSD 13.0-Release on my old MacMini, my first encounter with FreeBSD.
After some
Having found and read several contributions and documents here and elsewhere, I came to the conclusion that I have to use the bwn(4) wireless network driver and
bwn(4) synopsis states the following:
Does the synopsis describes two alternatives from which I can choose or do I have to follow both statements?
Is it enough to load the driver via loader.conf or is it required to add all the devices mentioned above? The list of devices is intimidating long and some are already present in GENERIC and others like siba(4) are said to be obsolete now (FreeBSD Broadcom Wi-Fi Improvements)
Generally I do not understand how the link from a device specified in the kernel to its driver (and maybe vice versa) is implemented in FreeBSD.
I started digging through the source codes, but I'm beginning to fear I'm drowning in them.
Clarification and comfort welcome!
After some
pkg
installs (zsh, vim...) I want to go wireless and activate MacMini's Broadcom BMC4321 WLAN adapter and then I began to stumble:bwn0: bwn_phy_n_attach: BWN_GPL_PHY not in kernel config; no PHY-N support
bwn0: failed
device_attach: bwn0 attach returned 6
Having found and read several contributions and documents here and elsewhere, I came to the conclusion that I have to use the bwn(4) wireless network driver and
- install bwn-firmware-kmod from /usr/ports/net.
- to get rid off the message "no PHY-N Support", I also have to use the kernel option BWN_GPL_PHY, that is I have to customise the kernel.
bwn(4) synopsis states the following:
To compile this driver into the kernel, add the following lines to the kernel configuration file:
device bwn<schnipp>device firmware
To load the driver as a module at boot, add the following lines to loader.conf(5):
if_bwn_load="YES"
Does the synopsis describes two alternatives from which I can choose or do I have to follow both statements?
Is it enough to load the driver via loader.conf or is it required to add all the devices mentioned above? The list of devices is intimidating long and some are already present in GENERIC and others like siba(4) are said to be obsolete now (FreeBSD Broadcom Wi-Fi Improvements)
Generally I do not understand how the link from a device specified in the kernel to its driver (and maybe vice versa) is implemented in FreeBSD.
I started digging through the source codes, but I'm beginning to fear I'm drowning in them.
Clarification and comfort welcome!