25 years later, can I do this?

TL;DR*
*I'm failing to get KDE to run on my newer machine.
Wifi is up, but not the Realtek 2. 5GbE adapter and startx fails to launch even TWM.
I have a GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX motherboard
with an Intel Core i7-12700KF
The GPU is a GeForce GTX 1080

Hello, 25 years ago the SysAdmins who worked at the ISP that hired me were deep into FreeBSD, but it felt over my abilities to use. Fast forward to 3 days ago, I was intrigued after seeing some Youtube videos that maybe the time was right for me to try my hand. Yesterday I succeeded getting some older hardware to run 14.2 with a KDE desktop. Now... now I need help with my daily driver (above).

Thanks a lot, Jon D>
 
Spend a few dollars to get yourself an intel PRO/1000 CT NIC from ebay to be going on with, like this one


It's not 2.5 GbE but it will get you on the network at minimum cost. When the realtek driver gets updated to support your onbooard nic you can switch to that and keep the card as a failsafe. It's always handy to have one on these in the drawer.
 
The Realtek 2.5Gbit ethernet is unfortunately not supported yet, the only supported 2.5Gbit ethernet is Intel's igc(4). That said, people have reported it works with net/realtek-re-kmod, so give that one a shot.

For the graphics, install x11/nvidia-driver, the 1080 should work fine with it.
I did report that the latest unsupported Realtek driver is working on my pFsense router (a FreeBSD derivative) but I detailed that (somewhat incompletely) on the pFsense forum.

My iperf3 tests show over 2 Gbits performance. I needed this because my lab ISP charges and delivers 1.8 Gbits up and down.
 
BTW, the Intel PCi adapters for lab machines such as desktop PC's are a minefield. They have had well documented bugs in the silicon that renders them as bricks before they arrive at your office.
 
The one I suggested he use as a temporary fix is only gigabit. They at least seem to be more or less reliable. We had hundreds of servers in the lab running with those cards without problems. Yes the intel 2.5 ones are crap.
 
pro/1000 CT. They go for about $10 on ebay, or less if you're lucky. Only gigabit ethernet speed, but better than nothing. I've got a drawer with about 10 of them in.
s-l1600.jpg
 
The one I suggested he use as a temporary fix is only gigabit. They at least seem to be more or less reliable. We had hundreds of servers in the lab running with those cards without problems. Yes the intel 2.5 ones are crap.
Now that some of us in suburban places in Canada and US can get fibre to the home/business locations here is the news...

Good news: 2 Gb to 8 Gb per second is available and it is symmetric. (Up and down speeds are the same and not throttled generally).

Bad news: Unless you want to share all that bandwidth with your friends and family over wifi then you need to stick to ethernet.

Thus you should seek a cheap 2.5 Gb interface to take advantage of what you pay you telco for.

Just my opinion.
 
Holy shit! :) My internet in the apartment (100M) is 5.76 US dollars per month. Mobile connection - 6.48 US dollars for 4 weeks.
 
100Mbs over fibre in Canada is $50 USD. Cell phone plans are also easily $50 USD. We have 3 carriers in Canada and the budget ones just resell with tons of restrictions on roaming, international calling and speed throttles. It is a sh*t show.
 
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