Major upgrade to release 14 resulted in loss of network connectivity because Realtek driver had to be installed again

[a time to chill]

I don't currently have an issue, it was resolved by applying applying the solution here. I am trying to understand why the Realtek ethernet driver had to be installed again after a major upgrade to release 14. For a future major upgrade, what is the best way to ensure that I don't lose the Realtek driver where I have to tether my phone to finish the upgrade?

 

[SirDice]

I am trying to understand why the Realtek ethernet driver had to be installed again after a major upgrade to release 14.

Everything has to be reinstalled after a major version upgrade. But kernel modules, i.e. drivers, are especially finicky. Your previous driver was compiled for 13.2-RELEASE (I'm assuming you upgraded from 13.2), it will fail to load on a 14.0 kernel. The driver needs to be compiled for a specific kernel version. In other words kernel modules for 13.x will not work on 14.x, it's as simple as that.

 

[Cath O'Deray]

From <https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge/#freebsdupdate-upgrade>:

… with any minor or major OS upgrade, if your package requirements include any kernel module:

• be prepared to build the module from source.