How to Unlock High Speed Wi-Fi on FreeBSD 14

There’s no denying that FreeBSD has historically maintained a reputation as a rock-solid and trustworthy server operating system. But there’s also the obviousness that most of the common open source desktop software can also run on FreeBSD. Many folks are therefore understandably coupling the solid base of FreeBSD to run on their laptops and desktops. But Wi-Fi support has been a gripe for some time, with only slow speed, old standards, working by default. That’s about to change.

Next month FreeBSD 14.3 is due to drop, and with it will come the recent hard work to give laptop users a modern, high speed, Wi-Fi experience. 

So what if, like me, you’ve just received a shiny new Framework laptop and you’re too impatient to wait just a month to get your hands on fast Wi-Fi? Well, we can build the upcoming 14.3 kernel and use it on our rock solid 14.2 base. ‘Compiling a kernel’ probably sounds quite daunting, but much to my surprise, I’ve found it’s not. Let’s look at the process.

Before we build the kernel, we should ensure we have the latest firmware:

OK, we’re good to go. Let’s crack on with the kernel build:

It’s worth using -j with the output of nproc to ensure we’re making full use of multi-core processors. On this Framework laptop, forgetting -j is the difference between a three minute compile and 15 minutes!

Also note the git switch — this moves our build on to the stable/14 branch, otherwise we’ll be building the development FreeBSD 15 kernel, which we don’t want here.

Reboot and find Wi-Fi speeds are considerably faster than before!

14.3 is due to drop later this month, so as of today you’re dealing with ‘pre release software’. So although it is a relatively simple process, you can expect gripes, which you may need to dig yourself out of. I’ve had none, but caveat emptor. Boot environments ¹ are your friend.

FreeBSD 15 will include much more work on Wi-Fi improvements, but this update only affects the iwlwifi driver. This is the reason my Framework laptop is AMD, but with an Intel Wi-Fi module.

Another thing to be aware of is, if you’re using graphics drivers you’ll most likely have to rebuild those too as they won’t match the kernel version. With the AMD Framework laptop here, I had to download the ports collection and rebuild drm-kmod.

If you have the patience to wait three or four weeks, the fast iwlwifi code will be in the install and you won’t have to do a kernel build. Depending on your sense of adventure, the wait may or may not be what you want 😊

You can also view this as a video on YouTube:

When 14.3 drops, we’ll be publishing a follow up post and video, installing the Framework laptop and taking it from zero to a desktop environment. Make sure you’re subscribed to the YouTube channel and following this feed in your favorite RSS reader to find out the moment that arrives! There’s also the newsletter, if you’d like to receive updates by email.

What FreeBSD related topics puzzling you could we help with? Get in touch with your ideas for more posts and videos.