I am a long time user of FreeBSD (since version 4) - you're unlikely to find what you want on FreeBSD side. The basic system is not powerful enough to run a FreeBSD version that supports that PCMCIA network card, with a X GUI.

40MB is about the resident size of basic FreeBSD 4.4 install (sendmail and other stuff turned off), with X in 640x480 and Windowmaker (a low footprint but full window manager).

With that amounts of RAM you would look at FreeBSD 2.x or a corresponding NetBSD version from circa 1995 (its early on in libre BSD life so these two share a lot of common code). Note these early versions might have no ports or just a handful of them, so what you would be working with is a POSIX X11 workstation with 5-15 MB of RAM available depending on how less RAM hungry those first versions are compared to circa Y2K 4.4R.

Btw if by DOS access you mean accessing floppy and HDD via BIOS, early FreeBSD will just do that.

the comment about dos access to floppy & pcmcia storage was to highlight the available routes for install media.

Are you sure that CardBus cards are even supposed to work in pre-CardBus PCMCIA slots? I don't think so

it's a 5v 16bit pcmcia card. i just had it working under win2k drivers in a cardbus slot.

stanwebber wrote on 2025-08-25, 22:35:

given these considerations, would someone please recommend an older flavor of bsd for a vlb, isa (no pci bus) pentium 75mhz laptop with 40mb of ram and no cdrom, but has dos access to floppy & pcmcia storage. i would ideally like something with a graphical desktop and a kernel new enough to support a bcm 4306 wireless card if possible, given my system's limited hardware specs.

I was responding mostly to the above. Install media is irrelevant, if you use CFs you're able to make the install on a modern PC via emulator.

If your goal is Unix-like system that supports your wireless card and performs OK on that computer, BSD is not it. If Linux is not it, then I guess you're out of luck.

I'm pretty sure, but we can double check that, the driver for your card became available in FreeBSD 7 age. This was contemporary version when I got my brand new Q6600. You don't want to run it on a 40 MB 75 MHz P5.
The driver - for sure - was not around when versions fit for your computer were new. These are only first FreeBSD and NetBSD releases. They have XFree86 - they do not have ports and packages.

To not go to long lengths here, early BSDs are not fit for x86 desktop. They fit for x86 server running standard Unix services or older proprietary Unix stuff.

I've long thought what to use on my Pentium 100 with 48 MB RAM and the best solution I found is loadlin into Slackware 9.

As I'm also into systems of this era, it's worth noting that that Slackware 7.1 was the last one to come bundled with XFree86 3.3.6, which is relevant if you're using one of the many cards that didn't make the cut for 4.0 (including most things ISA or VLB but also some early PCI)

jakethompson1 wrote on 2025-08-29, 23:57:

As I'm also into systems of this era, it's worth noting that that Slackware 7.1 was the last one to come bundled with XFree86 3.3.6, which is relevant if you're using one of the many cards that didn't make the cut for 4.0 (including most things ISA or VLB but also some early PCI)

These same Xservers are included in pasture/ all the way through Slackware 10.2. I do kind of wonder how useful they are at giving proper hw support that was lost in 4.x.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2025-08-30, 02:01:

jakethompson1 wrote on 2025-08-29, 23:57:

As I'm also into systems of this era, it's worth noting that that Slackware 7.1 was the last one to come bundled with XFree86 3.3.6, which is relevant if you're using one of the many cards that didn't make the cut for 4.0 (including most things ISA or VLB but also some early PCI)

These same Xservers are included in pasture/ all the way through Slackware 10.2. I do kind of wonder how useful they are at giving proper hw support that was lost in 4.x.

Yes, but xf86config is missing from /pasture (they must have thought you'd be carrying your XF86Config file forward from 7.1)

jakethompson1 wrote on 2025-08-30, 02:24:

Yes, but xf86config is missing from /pasture (they must have thought you'd be carrying your XF86Config file forward from 7.1)

The README says, install the packages from /pasture on top of XF86 4.x. That would mean you should still have the examples and xf86config command. But if that is somehow not compatible, then the README further goes on to say, you still have the xset package that you can use to create a config using XF86Setup.

thanks for the info on the bsd kernel modules for the bcm4306. it's a shame i can't get it working under any os for this laptop. it's an oddball 802.11g pcmcia card (non-cardbus)... perhaps the only one in existence. i tried asking for device id support to be added on the b43legacy developers mailing list, but it seems to be long abandoned.