Both of these use the Atheros (ath) driver. A full list of wireless cards supported by FreeBSD, and their drivers, is located here: Hardware supported by FreeBSD 6.1 on i386.

To get the laptop to recognize the card, a little customization is required -- it wasn't completely plug-and-play.  I had to modify the file /boot/loader.conf to contain the following:

if_ath_load="YES"
hw.pci.allow_unsupported_io_range="1"
hw.cbb.start_memory="0x20000000"

This will ensure that when the laptop starts up, it will at least see the card. (At the end of this page is the "dmesg" output that I get when booting my laptop, for your reference.) The card won't really be on the network without a few more steps though.  You need to get the card to log on to the wireless network.  I'm using WPA for authentication (with an Apple Airport Extreme hub), so I need to run a utility called wpa_supplicant, and give it the correct configuration.  I created a file /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf containing the information about how to log on to my network, by copying the file /usr/src/contrib/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf, deleting all the other "network=" lines, and then adding my network as so:

network={
       ssid="My network name"
       psk="mypassword"
       priority=5
}

(There is a bunch of information at "man wpa_supplicant.conf" about this file.)

Then I added the following to my /etc/rc.local so that these commands get run every time I start the machine up.

wpa_supplicant -B -i ath0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
kldload wlan_tkip
dhclient ath0

This isn't the "right" way to do this. I should actually modify the pccard startup scripts so that the card is started and stopped correctly if I insert or remove it. Since in my normal configuration I don't ever do that, I stopped here, but it would be a reasonable exercise to add that configuration too.

Works fine for me now.

Any more questions about what I did, send me email at mark.hill.webcontact@gmail.com and I'll be glad to help out if I can.

My dmesg output when I boot with the wireless card installed:
Copyright (c) 1992-2006 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
    The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE #0: Sun May  7 04:42:56 UTC 2006
    root@opus.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/SMP
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Pentium II/Pentium II Xeon/Celeron (363.96-MHz 686-class CPU)
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x66a  Stepping = 10
  Features=0x183f9ff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR>
real memory  = 201129984 (191 MB)
avail memory = 187101184 (178 MB)
kbd1 at kbdmux0
ath_hal: 0.9.16.16 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
acpi0: <IBM TP600R> on motherboard
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
acpi_ec0: <Embedded Controller: GPE 0x9> port 0x62,0x66 on acpi0
Timecounter "ACPI-safe" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000
acpi_timer0: <24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0xef08-0xef0b on acpi0
cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
acpi_throttle0: <ACPI CPU Throttling> on cpu0
acpi_lid0: <Control Method Lid Switch> on acpi0
acpi_button0: <Sleep Button> on acpi0
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
pci_link0: BIOS IRQ 9 for 0.6.INTA does not match previous BIOS IRQ 11
pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0
agp0: <Intel 82443BX (440 BX) host to PCI bridge> mem 0x40000000-0x43ffffff at device 0.0 on pci0
pcib1: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 1.0 on pci0
pci1: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib1
pci1: <display, VGA> at device 0.0 (no driver attached)
cbb0: <TI1251 PCI-CardBus Bridge> mem 0x50102000-0x50102fff irq 11 at device 2.0 on pci0
cardbus0: <CardBus bus> on cbb0
pccard0: <16-bit PCCard bus> on cbb0
cbb1: <TI1251 PCI-CardBus Bridge> mem 0x50101000-0x50101fff irq 11 at device 2.1 on pci0
cardbus1: <CardBus bus> on cbb1
pccard1: <16-bit PCCard bus> on cbb1
pci0: <multimedia, audio> at device 6.0 (no driver attached)
isab0: <PCI-ISA bridge> at device 7.0 on pci0
isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0
atapci0: <Intel PIIX4 UDMA33 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0xfcf0-0xfcff at device 7.1 on pci0
ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0
uhci0: <Intel 82371AB/EB (PIIX4) USB controller> port 0x8400-0x841f irq 11 at device 7.2 on pci0
uhci0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
usb0: <Intel 82371AB/EB (PIIX4) USB controller> on uhci0
usb0: USB revision 1.0
uhub0: Intel UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1
uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
pci0: <bridge> at device 7.3 (no driver attached)
acpi_tz0: <Thermal Zone> on acpi0
acpi_tz1: <Thermal Zone> on acpi0
acpi_tz2: <Thermal Zone> on acpi0
acpi_tz3: <Thermal Zone> on acpi0
fdc0: <floppy drive controller (FDE)> port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0
fdc0: [FAST]
fd0: <1440-KB 3.5" drive> on fdc0 drive 0
sio0: <16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0
sio0: type 16550A
atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
psm0: <PS/2 Mouse> irq 12 on atkbdc0
psm0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
psm0: model Generic PS/2 mouse, device ID 0
battery0: <ACPI Control Method Battery> on acpi0
battery1: <ACPI Control Method Battery> on acpi0
acpi_acad0: <AC Adapter> on acpi0
pmtimer0 on isa0
orm0: <ISA Option ROM> at iomem 0xc0000-0xcbfff on isa0
ppc0: parallel port not found.
sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
sio1: configured irq 3 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0
sio1: port may not be enabled
vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 363961296 Hz quality 800
Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec
ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0x20000000-0x2000ffff irq 11 at device 0.0 on cardbus0
ath0: Ethernet address: 00:0d:88:c2:3e:43
ath0: mac 5.9 phy 4.3 radio 4.6
ad0: 6149MB <HITACHI DK239A-65B 00X5A0B7> at ata0-master UDMA33
acd0: CDROM <TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-1902B/1717> at ata1-master PIO4
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad0s1a
ath0: link state changed to UP

Last updated 28 June 2006