[PC-BSD Testing] 7 Alpha 4 fixes laptop wifi problems with iwi

[Kris Moore]

Ian Robinson wrote:
> Dear Kris,
> 
> 1. iwi Wifi fixed.  The new Alpha 4 release fixes the wifi problem I
> had with the iwi driver.  I wrote over the Alpha 3 release as soon as
> I had a freshly minted dvd to install, so I cannot test with the
> commands you gave me.
> 
> Looking into the /boot/firmware directory shows there are no iwi
> files.  Obviously my comment about that was proven wrong.
> 
> I am guessing that the radio was not "on" as I never saw the blinking
> amber light on the laptop's front panel.  As you know, the inner
> workings of the "on" switch for the Intel PRO/2200 are so secret that
> not even God knows, and the usual workaround was to boot into and out
> of Whine_doze to make sure radio was on.   Alas, that did me no good.
> I am pleased to tell you that my wifi is perfect now, and scan detects
> all the wireless radios in the neighborhood.


My older iwi had that problem also, I had to use windows, or try and 
enable the radio during the BIOS POST, otherwise it was near impossible 
to get it to turn on :)

> 2. Screen Freeze fixed. My other problem about a screen freeze has
> also disappeared.  I've been running for almost two hours in and out
> of many programs without so much as a hiccup.  Viewing the Desktop
> Quick Guide almost always had sent me to the black blinking screen of
> death.  No longer.


Excellent

> 3.  Bill mentioned he had experienced problems with his monitor going
> in and out of standby.  I'm running the Alpha versions on three
> different systems (PIII desktop w/ Matrox G450 video card, Dual P3
> ML-370 server w/ ATI Rage Video and SCSI Raid array, and this laptop
> w/ Intel 855 Video), and all of the monitors go into and recover from
> standby just fine with my equipment combinations.


Yea, works great here as well, so thats more positive news :)

> 4.  I still have a "Lost & Found" menu item under the Applications Tab
> containing Akonadi Console and KJotsPart.


I see those here also, I'm not removing them just yet, because I'm not 
sure if its just a KDE bug placing them in the wrong directory, or if we 
need to remove the .desktop files itself. I want to wait until 4.1 is 
finished before removing anything.

> 5.  It's great to have Konsole working.

Tell me about it! I hated xterm with a passion :)

> 6.  More speed, more power, more Wow!  The combination of FreeBSD 7
> and KDE 4.1 RC1 really gives this computer some heretofore unexpected
> power.  Big directories read faster, Gmail loads faster, images
> resolve faster.  My pulse is up.  I'll probably have to be sedated
> soon with whatever doctors and psychiatrists give people to bring them
> back down to normal.

I'm having a harder time using KDE 3.5 myself, I really like 4 now.


> 7.  This morning I saw and downloaded a PCBSD 7.0 Alpha 4  .img file
> for USB installation.  There was no readme or directions.  There were
> several examples existing on the WWW that said to use dd to copy the
> .img file to the USB stick.  Is that the plan intended for the .img?
> However, this afternoon, the ftp site did not have the USB img

SHHHHHH!!!!! :) I uploaded that by accident on Friday, but yes I am just 
about finished with a USB bootable image, so you can throw PC-BSD7 
install on a 2GB USB flash disk and bootup with that instead. I should 
have it ready to go in the next week or so and then I'll upload it along 
with the others for testing.


> Thanks again Kris, Tim, and The Team.
> 
> Ian Robinson
> Salem, Ohio


-- 

Kris Moore
PC-BSD Software
http://www.pcbsd.com