FreeBSD 8.2 i386 on Samsung NC20

I decided to look at FreeBSD again. I've read that FreeBSD is a powerful operating system behind some well known websites, appliances, and services, so I thought it would be useful to learn. Also, where better to learn a Unix-like operating system than one that traces back to Unix?

The Samsung NC20 is a VIA Nano-based netbook. Its platform is not as widespread as an Intel or AMD-based system, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised I ran into problems. I found I could not install FreeBSD 7.4, either as an AMD64 or i386. I could not install FreeBSD 8.2 AMD64 either. FreeBSD 8.2 i386 could be installed, but I had to disable ACPI at first, then alter /boot/loader.conf to include the line debug.acpi.disabled="sysresources".

Next up, I wanted a wireless connection. My wireless connection is WPA-PSK using TKIP encryption. Things changed since last I looked at FreeBSD. I needed to alter /etc/rc.conf to include:
hostname="FreeBSDNC20"
wlans_ath0="wlan0"
wlan_tkip_load="YES"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

I had to add my wireless SSID and passphrase to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf. Because my original wpa_supplicant.conf was empty, I ran the following two commands (the first to verify the output):
wpa_passphrase ssid ssid_passphrase
wpa_passphrase ssid ssid_passphrase > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

After a restart, ifconfig reported an IP address. Success!

Wifi on FreeBSD

Compared to adding sound support, adding wifi to FreeBSD was a little bit more difficult. Of course, man wlan helps. Once you know what your wireless chipset is called, you can man that (look it up in the manual). On this Latitude D600, it was iwi. It could have also been ipw. I found this documentation helpful: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-wireless.html (FreeBSD Handbook, Chapter 31 Advanced Networking). Part of the difficulty is that the wireless router (access point) I wanted to connect to uses WPA security. Another issue is that you need to agree to the Intel license agreement and load the firmware. You need to load the 802.11i security components and use the wpa_supplicant. These lines get added to /boot/loader.conf (again, there is a way to do it in the kernel configuration file, but I don't know the pros/cons of that):
legal.intel_iwi.license_ack=1
if_iwi_load="YES"
wlan_load="YES"
firmware_load="YES"
iwi_bss_load="YES"
iwi_ibss_load="YES"
iwi_monitor_load="YES"
wlan_scan_ap_load="YES"
wlan_scan_sta_load="YES"
wlan_wep_load="YES"
wlan_ccmp_load="YES"
wlan_tkip_load="YES"

In the file /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf I had to add:
network={
ssid="mySSID"
psk="myPSK"
}

I added this line to /etc/rc.conf:
ifconfig_iwi0="WPA DHCP"

When I reboot, I have internet access, and it connects to my network as part of the loader script. Once I figure it out, I need to detail how to load Firefox (not hard) with Adobe Flash support (seems hard).