RTL8821CE driver?

Have you try ndis()?

I did try to used it with
Code: 
none1@pci0:4:0:0:       class=0x028000 card=0x817210ec chip=0x817210ec rev=0x10 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.'
    device     = 'RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller'
    class      = network
but it crashes when loading kernel module.
 
fbsd_ said:
nope. Not yet unfortunately. Hope to get as soon as possible. Are you tried to setup FreeBSD to your daily computer? That sounds crazy
Click to expand...
I like testing new systems and freebsd showed up by accident and I wanted to install it and play on my laptop head.
 
Trying to convert my own Lenovo Ideapad 720S (Ryzen 5 2500, Vega 8 graphics). Everything works swimmingly - except for the wi-fi card (rtl8821ce).

(on another machine that already has 13-RELEASE) I tried NDIS as per the Handbook, downloaded the Realtek drivers - and ndisgen didn't like the .sys and .inf files I fed it. I tried 64-bit drivers from all 3 available versions (win7/8.1/10) - no go.

Next, I tried to boot my Ideapad into the 13.1-RELEASE installer, and go into 'Live CD' mode.
Running ls -l /boot/kernel | grep rtwn yielded a list of .ko modules that look like the correct driver (there's only one .ko file with 8821 in the name)
Running pciconf -lv | grep -B3 network yielded the same results as in post #27... but correct for my card. And yes, I also get the same none1@pci0:nnn:nnn device name.

So, I kldload the modules I find, no complaints/crashes there... kldstat shows the modules as loaded. BUT:

Running sysctl net.wlan.devices returns empty.
Running dmesg | grep none1 to look for the none1 device turned up by pciconf earlier - returns empty.
ifconfig shows lo0 (loopback) and ue0 (USB-attached ethernet cable), but not the wifi card...

No wifi is kind of a dealbreaker here... I don't want to be chained to my desk. If push comes to shove, I am aware of other options/workarounds. Decided to be stubborn in my pursuit of this one.
 
astyle said:
Trying to convert my own Lenovo Ideapad 720S (Ryzen 5 2500, Vega 8 graphics). Everything works swimmingly - except for the wi-fi card (rtl8821ce).

(on another machine that already has 13-RELEASE) I tried NDIS as per the Handbook, downloaded the Realtek drivers - and ndisgen didn't like the .sys and .inf files I fed it. I tried 64-bit drivers from all 3 available versions (win7/8.1/10) - no go.

Next, I tried to boot my Ideapad into the 13.1-RELEASE installer, and go into 'Live CD' mode.
Running ls -l /boot/kernel | grep rtwn yielded a list of .ko modules that look like the correct driver (there's only one .ko file with 8821 in the name)
Running pciconf -lv | grep -B3 network yielded the same results as in post #27... but correct for my card. And yes, I also get the same none1@pci0:nnn:nnn device name.

So, I kldload the modules I find, no complaints/crashes there... kldstat shows the modules as loaded. BUT:

Running sysctl net.wlan.devices returns empty.
Running dmesg | grep none1 to look for the none1 device turned up by pciconf earlier - returns empty.
ifconfig shows lo0 (loopback) and ue0 (USB-attached ethernet cable), but not the wifi card...

No wifi is kind of a dealbreaker here... I don't want to be chained to my desk. If push comes to shove, I am aware of other options/workarounds. Decided to be stubborn in my pursuit of this one.
Click to expand...
Glad to have you be stubborn and scratch your own itch. The 8821au driver appears to be working with rtwn FreeBSD device driver. rtw88 is the Linux device driver for rtl8821ce.

Found this approach using alpine Linux wifi driver for rtw88 for the rtl8821ce driver.
https://www.freshports.org/net/wifibox-alpine/ If you are able to build and test, tell us what you see from this vantage point.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/WiFi/Rtw88 Read more about rtl8821ce device driver modules
 
astyle said:
(on another machine that already has 13-RELEASE) I tried NDIS as per the Handbook, downloaded the Realtek drivers - and ndisgen didn't like the .sys and .inf files I fed it. I tried 64-bit drivers from all 3 available versions (win7/8.1/10) - no go.
Click to expand...
NDIS was a Windows XP thing. You might have luck with XP / Vista 64-bit drivers, but I wouldn't bet on it working.

XP x64 Remote NDIS based Internet Sharing Device driver?

Hello, May I know if any one have a working Remote NDIS based Internet Sharing Device driver for XP x64? I only have a working one for x86 (32 bit), but it obviously does not work for 64 bit.
msfn.org
 
wb7odyfred said:
Glad to have you be stubborn and scratch your own itch. The 8821au driver appears to be working with rtwn FreeBSD device driver. rtw88 is the Linux device driver for rtl8821ce.

Found this approach using alpine Linux wifi driver for rtw88 for the rtl8821ce driver.
https://www.freshports.org/net/wifibox-alpine/ If you are able to build and test, tell us what you see from this vantage point.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/WiFi/Rtw88 Read more about rtl8821ce device driver modules
Click to expand...
Thanks! I have to say, this looks useful! Will probably report my findings over the weekend. 😁

My other options included swapping in a compatible Intel-branded aftermarket card. The manual that I found for my laptop said that there are just two Intel-based options... and my Ideapad 720S has 8 GB of RAM... Got the thing back in 2018, it will be 5 years old soon.
 
Update: net/wifibox-alpine compiled perfectly on a 13.1-RELEASE machine that I have. Got a 93-MB package. But downloading it to a Live CD environment for testing seems a bit of a challenge. Live CD is a Read-Only environment.

I tried to do some research on how to work through that, but it only pointed me in the direction of rolling my own Live CD... I want to be able to test that driver before I commit to installing FreeBSD on the laptop's SSD...

I'm hoping that this amounts to some mount command with useful parameters, rather than rolling my own Live CD from scratch. So if someone could point me in the right direction, that would be appreciated!
 
Installed 13.1-RELEASE to a USB stick, but my Ideapad 720S with 8 GB of RAM is VERY finicky trying to boot that stick.
After that, I proceeded to install net/wifibox-alpine in a couple separate ways:

To start, I compiled net/wifibox-alpine on another 13.1-RELEASE box, and then used scp to slurp up the prepared package onto the USB stick (hostname beastie_test). kldload - ed the following modules: if_rtwn_pci.ko, if_urtw.ko, rtwn.ko, and rtwn-rtl8821aufw.ko ... no complaints, but nothing registering in dmesg, either. ifconfig not turning up the new hardware, either.

Then, I compiled the port on the beastie_test host itself...
Code: 
# pkg info wifibox-alpine
wifibox-alpine-20220712
Name           : wifibox-alpine
Version        : 20220712
Installed on   : Sun Nov 13 16:13:35 2022 PST
Origin         : net/wifibox-alpine
Architecture   : FreeBSD:13:amd64
Prefix         : /usr/local
Categories     : net
Licenses       : BSD2CLAUSE
Maintainer     : pali.gabor@gmail.com
WWW            : https://github.com/pgj/freebsd-wifibox-alpine
Comment        : Wifibox guest based on Alpine Linux
Options        :
        APP_HOSTAPD    : off
        APP_WPA_SUPPLICANT: on
        COMP_GZIP      : off
        COMP_LZ4       : off
        COMP_LZO       : off
        COMP_XZ        : on
        COMP_ZSTD      : off
        FW_ATH10K      : on
        FW_ATH11K      : on
        FW_ATMEL       : off
        FW_B43         : off
        FW_B43LEGACY   : off
        FW_BRCM        : on
        FW_IPW2100     : off
        FW_IPW2200     : off
        FW_IWL3945     : off
        FW_IWL4965     : off
        FW_IWLWIFI     : on
        FW_MARVELL     : on
        FW_MEDIATEK    : on
        FW_RT61        : on
        FW_RTLWIFI     : on
        FW_RTW88       : on
        FW_TI          : off
        UDS_PASSTHRU   : on
        XX_DRIVER_RTW89: on
        XX_DRIVER_WL   : on
Annotations    :
        FreeBSD_version: 1301000
        flavor         : default
Flat size      : 121MiB
Description    :
The implementation of the Wifibox embedded wireless router is based on
the use of a Linux-based guest operating system which can communicate
with the host's wireless network card on behalf of the host.  In order
to meet the requirements, this has to be a system with a low resource
footprint and easy to manage.  This is derived from Alpine Linux,
which is an actively maintained, security-oriented, lightweight
distribution, based on musl libc and BusyBox.

WWW: https://github.com/pgj/freebsd-wifibox-alpine

I turned on the FW_RTW88 option, but that the .ko somehow never got installed anywhere properly - still lives in the port's work-default/ subdirectory. In fact:
Code: 
 # updatedb
>>> WARNING
>>> Executing updatedb as root.  This WILL reveal all filenames
>>> on your machine to all login users, which is a security risk.
# locate rtw88 | grep ko
/usr/ports/net/wifibox-alpine/work-default/freebsd-wifibox-alpine-f8fd8cdb1a0e545272917fe1dc1f9544cf74e383/work/image-contents/lib/modules/5.15.53-0-lts/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8723d.ko.xz
/usr/ports/net/wifibox-alpine/work-default/freebsd-wifibox-alpine-f8fd8cdb1a0e545272917fe1dc1f9544cf74e383/work/image-contents/lib/modules/5.15.53-0-lts/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8723de.ko.xz
/usr/ports/net/wifibox-alpine/work-default/freebsd-wifibox-alpine-f8fd8cdb1a0e545272917fe1dc1f9544cf74e383/work/image-contents/lib/modules/5.15.53-0-lts/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8822b.ko.xz
/usr/ports/net/wifibox-alpine/work-default/freebsd-wifibox-alpine-f8fd8cdb1a0e545272917fe1dc1f9544cf74e383/work/image-contents/lib/modules/5.15.53-0-lts/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8822be.ko.xz
/usr/ports/net/wifibox-alpine/work-default/freebsd-wifibox-alpine-f8fd8cdb1a0e545272917fe1dc1f9544cf74e383/work/image-contents/lib/modules/5.15.53-0-lts/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8822c.ko.xz
/usr/ports/net/wifibox-alpine/work-default/freebsd-wifibox-alpine-f8fd8cdb1a0e545272917fe1dc1f9544cf74e383/work/image-contents/lib/modules/5.15.53-0-lts/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8822ce.ko.xz
/usr/ports/net/wifibox-alpine/work-default/freebsd-wifibox-alpine-f8fd8cdb1a0e545272917fe1dc1f9544cf74e383/work/image-contents/lib/modules/5.15.53-0-lts/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_core.ko.xz
/usr/ports/net/wifibox-alpine/work-default/freebsd-wifibox-alpine-f8fd8cdb1a0e545272917fe1dc1f9544cf74e383/work/image-contents/lib/modules/5.15.53-0-lts/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_pci.ko.xz

Resolving this last code snippet (finding and installing the rtw88 modules properly) and the compat.linuxkpi.skb.mem_limit=1 suggested in the wiki are the next thing to try. Although, if those last two don't work... a compatible Intel card (which is about $15-20 USD) is in the works for me. :/
 
One more thing: the hack that puts compat.linuxkpi.skb.mem_limit=1into /boot/loader.conf doesnt seem to work... Yeah, this is GENERIC kernel on a 13.1-RELEASE.
Code: 
# cat /boot/loader.conf
kern.geom.label.disk_ident.enable="0"
kern.geom.label.gptid.enable="0"
cryptodev_load="YES"
zfs_load="YES"
compat.linuxkpi.skb.mem_limit=1
# sysctl compat.linuxkpi.skb.mem_limit
sysctl: unknown oid 'compat.linuxkpi.skb.mem_limit'
# sysctl compat.linuxkpi
compat.linuxkpi.task_struct_reserve: 2304
compat.linuxkpi.net_ratelimit: 99
compat.linuxkpi.warn_dump_stack: 0
compat.linuxkpi.debug: 0
 
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