From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Nov 8 00:40:56 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EF4CF16A412 for ; Wed, 8 Nov 2006 00:40:56 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bennett@cs.niu.edu) Received: from mp.cs.niu.edu (mp.cs.niu.edu [131.156.145.41]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BACAA43DAB for ; Wed, 8 Nov 2006 00:40:20 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from bennett@cs.niu.edu) Received: from mp.cs.niu.edu (bennett@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mp.cs.niu.edu (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id kA80eCLI029735 for ; Tue, 7 Nov 2006 18:40:12 -0600 (CST) Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 18:40:12 -0600 (CST) From: Scott Bennett Message-Id: <200611080040.kA80eC4x029734@mp.cs.niu.edu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: need to get updates, packages, ports, etc. via Windows XP wireless X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 00:40:57 -0000 Here's my situation: I have a nearly two-year-old Inspiron XPS with a Dell 1450 dual-band wireless card and a Mobility Radeon 9800 graphics card. FreeBSD's support for these is insufficient to make the system useful under FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE, which I recently installed to replace 5.4. At present my only access to the Internet is via wireless services. For the graphics card, there is still no native support for 3-D operations, and the version of X.org that is bundled with FreeBSD 6.1 does not include the MESA 3-D support. I don't like this, but I can live with it for the moment. For the wireless card, there is no native support, and the NDISulator method did not work as recently as 5.4. Using ndisgen in 6.1, I now get an error message telling me that the bcmwl5.inf file is in the wrong character set and that I should use iconv to convert it to the proper character set. However, iconv is a tool that is not part of the FreeBSD base system, but rather must be installed from the ports tree (or maybe also available in packages--I don't know). To install ports or packages requires Internet access, which I don't have in FreeBSD until I have wireless support, which I can't even try to get until I have the software downloaded to work with. Is there a workable procedure to use to get FreeBSD updates, packages, port source files, and so forth downloaded under Windows XP, which does have working wireless support, so that I can try to make 6.1 useful? Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ********************************************************************** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army." * * -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * **********************************************************************