GMKTek Mini PC with Intel N97

freezr

freezr

I recently bought this mini PC, the goal was to install FreeBSD and use it as daily-driver, unfortunately I couldn't meet some specific criteria thus I had to move on Linux... 😢

Anyway I used FreeBSD for one week and my evaluation is surely positive, here a brief recap:
  • CPU/GPU: Alder-lake gen, works by compiling drm-61-kmod 👍
  • Ethernet: good 👍
  • Wifi: good with firmware 👍
  • Mini SD reader: not recognized 👎
  • Video only 2 HDMI port: good for multimedia 👍 ; bad for recent monitor that usually have only display port 👎
  • USB: 3 USB-A-v3 👍 ; 1 USB-C used for power supply 👎
  • Audio jack: not tested 🤷‍♂️
  • Size: very compact 👍
  • Noise: very silent 👍
  • Performance: good 👍
  • Ram: good, up to 12GB 👍
  • Storage: 1 m2-sata 👎

If compared with my previous setup, which was a SBC LibreComputer ROC-3328-CC, the difference is abysmal. Same size, better performance, it is a real computer, I use (and used) headless with TigerVNC and you get GPU acceleration and X working flawless.

If you're looking for a mini-pc to run FreeBSD, this works just fine.

Thanks... 😉
 
Test it with FreeBSD 15 RC3 and nothing works.

I am trying to get working the WiFi, it installed the firmware but the wifi it is not recognized, I only see the ethernet interface.

I need to get the WiFi working if possible, otherwise I am going to reinstall FreeBSD 14...

But really drive my crazy all these inconsistencies from a version to another... 😵‍💫
 
Provide the output of "pciconf -lv |grep -i -B2 -A1 wi-fi" -- that will tell us if the wifi is supported (or if you have to install a relevant package).
 

I am going to open an appropriate request, thanks!

I guess it is not the time yet...

Code: 
pciconf -lv | grep -B3 Wireless
    class      = serial bus
rtw880@pci0:1:0:0:    class=0x028000 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x10ec device=0xc821 subvendor=0x10ec subdevice=0xc821
    vendor     = 'Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.'
    device     = 'RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter'

The hardware is there, the firmware and module are loaded:

Code: 
Needed firmware packages: 'gpu-firmware-intel-kmod-alderlake gpu-firmware-intel-kmod-tigerlake wifi-firmware-rtw88-kmod-rtw8821c'
The most recent versions of packages are already installed

kldstat | grep rtw
14    1 0xffffffff83827000   129660 if_rtw88.ko

But not wlan0 interface:
Code: 
 ifconfig
re0: flags=1008843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 1500
    options=8209b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
    ether e0:51:d8:17:8d:cd
    inet 10.0.10.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.10.255
    media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex,master>)
    status: active
    nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
lo0: flags=1008049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 16384
    options=680003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,LINKSTATE,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
    inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
    groups: lo
    nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>

Also Xorg doesn't work either, but wifi now is more important... Thanks... 🙏
 
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