Thinking of Trying the new (yet to release) PCBSD 7

[zrchrn]

I have a few main issues:
1. I have a dell broadcom wireless card what are my chances of getting it to work?
What I mean by this question is will I be able to find enough support and documentation to help me with this even though I've never really used bsd for a significant amount of time? (I'm an Arch Linux user).
2. I have an Intel video card how is the support for that?
3. Which iso's do I have to get. Can I just get the first iso?

thank you in advanced

[TerryP]

1/ Depends on the chipset and not with PC-BSD 1.5.1, your best bet is to by a card that is compatible -- as far as I know, Broadcom are bastards about this, so your only chance outside of FreeBSDs bleeding edge is to use NDISGEN. If you know the cards chipset, you can generally find a fair bit of probability of it's working or not; at least one of the laptop HCL (hardware compatibility lists) also lists PCMCIA cards known to work or be paper weights. When the hardware is supported, Wireless support under *BSD is fairly good IMHO.

2/ This depends on the chipset and the level of support desired, generally speaking 'well enough' but things such as Compiz/Beryl/Kompositing may be a bit beyond your reach. I'll leave it to someone who has an Intel chipset to comment.


3/ You only need disk 1 to install, disk 2 contains several PBI and packages (e.g. kdegames, koffice), a copy of the FreeBSD source code, and a copy of ports. You will want CD#2 if you want to try ndisgen without any network connection. Beyond that, you can get 'newer' versions of everything via ports or pbidir.com

[sqlpython]

When the hardware is supported, Wireless support under *BSD is fairly good IMHO.

The above is correct for Broadcom Wireless with emphasize on Fairly.Broadcom support including using Ndisgen has it's shortcomings. The signal will be dropped about every 40-90 minutes. Of course that is not the case for FreeBSD supported cards of which Broadcom WIreless is not.
I have posted a few threads here and there in these forums and have had success with ndisgen. Rather then repeat it just use the Search link here and type in ndisgen.

I will be upgrading to PCBSD7 rather then a new install this weekend to try the Beta. If that doesn't work then a complete install will be in order and I will post back. I will use a Dell Inspiron 5100 w/ Intel pentium 4, 2.5 ghz, 1gb mem, 64mb ati video. The laptop has a Dell 1350 TrueMobile Wireless which is Broadcom and uses the bcmwl5 Windows driver. So, in a day or so we will see if there is Any improvement. I am not expecting a revelation. However I am hoping that PCBSD7 (FreeBSD7) will have improved networking and better interpretation of the ndisgen produced driver for the Wifi.

One last note. I have downloaded the PCBSD7 DVD which is supposed to be complete and not needing a second CD. So, the extra apps (PBIs) should be on the DVD.

[zrchrn]

Thank you for the quick and helpful responses. I beleive that mine is also the bcmwl5 driver. I'll test this and get back a.s.a.p. (Though I may wait for the full release).