I installed freebsd which I like a lot but I'm having problems with wireless even though my card is well supported. I'm going to keep working on it.

Don't have experience with freebsd. Sorry. Here's the wireless page for BSD--
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook...-wireless.html

Good Luck-

Most of what I know of BSD is that wireless chipsets are not as supported as they are in linux.

As far as linux, check your logs. If things are not working, the logs tend to give hints as to why. I tend to use old setup methods, which can be blocked by "network managers". wicd, network manager, and others can be complete fail when the driver is quirky or has issues (like missing firmware).

$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
$ sudo iwlist wlan0 scanning

The modern version might be more like:

$ sudo ip link set wlan0 up
$ sudo iw wlan0 scan

same basic function, but some distros don't install the legacy ways by default anymore. And various BSDs are "different". Basically if those bring back results for nearby wireless options, your driver is probably functional.

$ dmesg | grep -i firmware
$ sudo cat /var/log/syslog | grep -i wl

In days of old I had to do odd things like set the ESSID twice before a driver took notice. One of the quirky things that make modern managers fail.

The only thing that worries me is that everytime I try to bring up wireless I lose my wired connection. I even tried a wireless dongle and it is recognized but when I try to use it again no more wired connection. I don't know what else to try at this point. When I try with wireless it can't connect to dhcp and then I get an error message about wpa_supplicant. One thing though if I can get freeBSD installed and working I think I can install just about anything!!

returns nothing
I tried checking the log files and couldn't find anything.

I tend to go low level CLI for networking.

$ sudo service --status-all
$ sudo service wicd stop
$ sudo service network-manager stop
$ sudo systemctl stop ModemManager

Just getting the obstacles out of the way. Uninstalling them works too, but some environments have them as dependencies, so not always an option.

$ sudo dhclient -4 -v eth0

For wired connections. Often times I swap out the /etc/resolv.conf for a custom one. ISP and Router DNS results can be restrictive or inaccurate at times.

$ sudo wpa_password {ESSID} {PASSWORD} > wpa.conf
$ sudo wpa_supplicant -Dnl80211,wext -iwlan0 -cwpa.conf &
$ sudo dhclient -4 -v wlan0

For wireless. The latest connection method will likely redo the default gateway which is mostly why the old method is now fail. If there is no encryption or using the older WEP method, then wpa_* need not apply and use iw / iwconfig to set the ESSID and other specs, then dhclient (or dhcpcd) to connect to the network.

$ sudo route -n
$ netstat -r

To see your IPs and routes.

$ ping -c 2 8.8.8.8

To check your connectivity (googles DNS server).

$ ping -c 2 google.com

To make sure DNS works (name to IP resolution)

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -d dist-upgrade
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

To check for updates and get them. Plus poor mans speed test. I'll often do the first two twice if on a slow connection with a lot of updates. As they'll likely be "more" updates by the time I grab the previous updates. And I might not want to update until I have all the updates. Or delay the update if something I'm using (like a kernel or X) is getting updated.

The problem is the commands you gave me don't work in freebsd. I've done a lot of googling and all I've found is how to compile the kernel to add support for my wireless card and I find that hard to believe. I also tried to find support for my wireless dongle and it's supposed to work out of the box but it doesn't. I can't find a wireless dongle that works for freebsd.

The good thing is that my modem/router is right next to me.

Free BSD is a Unix like os and not identical to a pure Linux distrubution.
With BSD you will not have a lot of the things that a Linux os has.

https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/artic...and-linux.html
https://www.howtogeek.com/190773/htg...linux-and-bsd/
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-...linux-and-bsd/

DO some reading to get things working.

https://www.freebsd.org/docs.html

https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook...-wireless.html

Wireless WEP/WPA
http://srobb.net/fbsdquickwireless.html

https://www.dan.me.uk/blog/2010/01/2...uding-wpawap2/

BSD should have ifconfig and route. Although the syntax was a bit different when I tried it. The man pages are good with examples though. And there's ee to edit if vi isn't your wheel house. ee == easy edit, the nano of bsd.

Agreed-

https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/artic...s/network.html

Op could greatly benefit in knowledge by doing some reading:-

I've spoken to other Guru's about running BSD and it has a learning curve to getting it up and running. It's a different beast like Slackware is unto itself:-

First of all I greatly resent that because I have done a ton of reading and have followed the instructions to the letter. If I missed something that only proves I'm human and for the short time I have used linux I think I have done good making it this far. I will keep working on this until I have it working regardless of what anyone says. I will check out the information later.

Thanks Shadow_7. I'll try again.

"I'm sorry" bsth123; I didn't know that you had read all of the documentation.

-::-If you already have the knowledge than there is nothing to resent as an apology has been offered.-::-

Guru's make mistakes too:-

Manjaro Linux 17 LXQt desktop. ...it is an easily installed Arch and is very focused upon laptops' support.

Direct link, without systemd:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/man...6.iso/download

Or with systemd:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/man...6.iso/download

For such an old system, KDE/Plasma is not a good DE. The LXQt, or perhaps Lumina, is as close as one can get.
Using systemd is probably not a good choice either, .

Manjaro Linux at Distrowatch: https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=manjaro

...
Have you considered donating the old IBM T'pad to a charity/school/...etc.?
...

Apology accepted. I did check my /etc/rc.conf file and I had entered the number for my wired connection. But why do you think that I have not asked a question in the BSD forum? I'm trying very hard. It was not easy figuring it out so that I now can boot into kde and have installed all the programs I need. I've been using linux less than two months yet I managed to do all that on my own without a single question. So I guess you can understand my frustration. Anyway, back to wireless.

Thank You.

I completely understand your frustration as I've been there myself.

a]

I've come too far and put in too much work to turn back now. As far as donating it I'm without another laptop right now because my new one is being repaired. I'll put some thought into it when I get mine back.