why base system does not include realtek rtl 8125 driver

A

Ali.Z

hello,

issue:
my old freebsd 12.4 machine died recently, got new computer and and DD'ed the newest 14.3 memstick; proceeded with installation(*) until the point where i should configure my network, and got nuked by no network message + not firmware detected.

after installing, i thought what if i reinstall but change booting method, and my USB got damaged by the amount of heat (12-14 years old), unlucky.

workaround:
luckily i had an old drive with windows on it, booted it up, installed a virtual machine on it.
configured VM to give the guest full physical access to my 1TB baracuda HDD, and then installed freebsd 14.3 to HDD using VM.
as normal, i changed pkg repos to include latest, bootstrap and then download realtek-re-kmod (as of now version 1100.00.1403000_1)

configured if_re.ko to load on boot, shutdown VM and windows, and then physically booted from HDD; everything works fine and as expected.
re0@pci0:5:0:0: class=0x020000 rev=0x05 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x10ec device=0x8125 subvendor=0x1043 subdevice=0x87d7
vendor = 'Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.'
device = 'RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller'
class = network
subclass = ethernet
Click to expand...
re0: flags=1008843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=60251b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,TSO4,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
Click to expand...

question:
why base system does not include the driver? rtl 8125 drv github repo
if not possible in binary form, then maybe in source form so we can compile it.
but installing without network connection is pretty much a dead end, if there is anything important then it is network drivers.

p.s. i did find many boards ship rtl 8125 nic, i hope it get included in base soon; as im planning to get new USB (NVMe SSD) that connects to USB 3.2 port to make a portable OS, thus i can access my OS wherever i go.


(*) experienced a bug where it says installing base, kernel, ports, src, it had duplicates, trying to install kernel, ports, src, two times.
and this probably caused by restarting the installation.
 
Please try the net/realtek-rge-kmod port or package (very fresh, don't see it in the FreeBSD-ports-kmod pkg yet)
This driver is planned to land in base.
 
by "this" you mean realtek-rge-kmod?
if so, what is the difference?
based on my research the only thing i found is that "rge" came from netbsd.

i dont want to install it without knowing technical differences, if you have any info on this, links, papers or even source code where i can read and compare; then please share.

thanks for the heads up.
 
I agree with you, Ali.Z; A kmods repository is a nice thing, but it doesn't make much sense in terms of the basic network.

With other operating systems, you simply download the drivers you need for a basic installation. In the past, it was still possible to download packages manually via a second computer, but today (…"since some years"…) the directory listing is disabled - even though this would help you obtain the necessary binary package. The URL for the required package cannot currently be determined in a meaningful way.

The method via ports is also blocked, as these do not function without a network connection. My solution was to manually place the distfile for the port. However, this is a) inconvenient, and b) likely too complicated for some. It also requires the ports tree, which may not be available (and is now inaccessible).

No pkg command works (it either wants to bootstrap, or a successful run of update first), and no "make" in the ports. Dead end. The only option left is to use external media to transfer something to the target system. And this is not exactly easy due to the lack of URLs for the drivers (and don't forget: even mounting a USB stick presents many people with enough challenges - and may even require packages for exfat).

Even if this driver will eventually find its way into the base system, there is still a gap here. The next network chip will arrive at some point…
 
yep exactly, pkg.freebsd.org was not accessible from browser to possibly search for the driver; but even if it was I would still need fusefs-exfat in order to transfer it, dead end. (*)

it was really an embarrassing situation for me, I believe they should consider the situations that could lead to dead end after and/or during installation.

(*) fat32lba is universal but no USB or tiny SSDs ship preformatted with fat32lba, litrtally every portable storage device I have seen uses exfat; which is the 2nd universal fs imo, only USBs pre 2008 or 2009 used to have fat32lba iirc.
 
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