I'm sure I'll get creamed for asking such an obtuse question, but I'm not exactly sure how to narrow it.

My goal is two-fold:

1) get the "embedded" version of pfsense (yes, I know it's BSD based) to load a vga driver since I can't find a store within 20 miles of here that carries a null-modem cable. (I knew I shouldn't have tossed mine out).

2) understand *nix a little better.

So the "embedded" version doesn't load a vga driver since it expects to be installed on a headless system. Do I necessarily need to compile a vga driver into the kernel, or can I fish around for a auto-run file that can enable my vga card?

If this is still too vague, kindly just ask questions that may narrow it down a bit. If I could anticipate the questions, I'd have surely answered them.

I don't know what p-fenses is. If it's BSD based, you should post on the *BSD forums, where you are going to get a better chance to get a valid solution. My guess is that you need to include framebuffer support on your kernel, but my experience with bsd has been very limited.

If it's based on a linux kernel, you should search for framebuffer. It can be setup in the same linux kernel using vesafb, vesafb-tng or uvesafb depending on the concrete version you are using. Most kernels comes with that precompiled, but if it was a special kernel for a headless device then it might not have that support and you will need to recompile.