How to FreeBSD

Wifi

Connecting a computer to an existing wireless network is a very common situation. This procedure shows the steps required.

Obtain the SSID (Service Set Identifier) and PSK (Pre-Shared Key) for the wireless network from the network administrator.

Identify the wireless adapter. The FreeBSD GENERIC kernel includes drivers for many common wireless adapters. If the wireless adapter is one of those models, it will be listed in the sysctl(8) net.wlan.devices variable:

sysctl net.wlan.devices

If a wireless adapter is not listed, an additional kernel module might be required, or it might be a model not supported by FreeBSD.

This example shows the Atheros ath0 wireless adapter.

WARNING: following is the original info, but a more secure way is described below

Add an entry for this network to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf. If the file does not exist, create it. Replace myssid and mypsk with the SSID and PSK provided by the network administrator.

network={
    ssid="myssid"
    psk="mypsk"
}

More secure way to add network

To encrypt password use wpa_supplicant:

wpa_passphrase "SSID" "WPA2key" >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

Add entries to /etc/rc.conf to configure the network on startup:

wlans_ath0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA SYNCDHCP"

Restart the computer, or restart the network service to connect to the network:

service netif restart

Audio

Follow instructions from Chapter 8 in the FreeBSD Handbook

Then setup up JACK to use the device shown in cat /dev/snd_stat.

To start it by hand use:

jackd -r -d oss -r 48000 -C /dev/dsp -P /dev/dsp

From now on this should be saved in .config/jack/conf.xml. To send JACK's output through OSS, change JACK's driver with:

jack_control ds oss

See this forum thread.

For more info and a thorough explanation see these notes.

Windows Manager

Install X

Follow instructions in Installing Xorg

Install drivers

install nvidia-driver and configure the system as described in NVIDIA:

# sysrc kld_list+=nvidia

but also add this

# sysrc kld_list+=nvidia-modeset

Create a file /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf

Section "Device"
	Identifier "Card0"
	Driver     "nvidia"
EndSection

Install WM

Any will do. openbox is easy to start but needs some configuration to do basic stuff.

install firefox and alacritty
copy /usr/local/share/xdg/openbox/menu.xml to .config/openbox and add alacritty to terminals
add openbox-session to xinit.rc

StartX

$ startx

Wacom

See Wacom Tablet - FreeBSD Wiki

loopier/freebsd