Discussion:
supporting AR8161/8165
(too old to reply)
Eitan Adler
2013-01-01 17:30:16 UTC
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Hey,

Are there any plans to support the AR8161/8165 chipset?
[ ***@pci… class=0x02000 card=0x397917aa chip=0x10911969 rev=0x08 hdr=0x00 ]
--
Eitan Adler
YongHyeon PYUN
2013-01-02 01:26:37 UTC
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Post by Eitan Adler
Hey,
Are there any plans to support the AR8161/8165 chipset?
Don't know about AR8165 but your controller looks like AR8161 (L1F)
Gigabit Ethernet. When I contacted QAC(Qualcomm Atheros
Communications) to get an engineering board for AR8161/AR8162 I was
told that QAC is working on unified driver for Linux/FreeBSD. It
seems their plan was to release a Linux/FreeBSD driver that
supports all AR81xx family. However it appears their endeavor was
not successful and Linux wanted to pick up the new driver for
L1F/L2F controllers only rather than replacing existing drivers
with QAC's new one. This decision made QAC to overhaul Linux driver
(alx) to follow Linux's decision and their priority was to get a
stable Linux driver. It was long time ago and I don't know current
status.

QAC already donated a couple of engineering samples so I guess it
wouldn't take a long time for me to write a driver for
AR816x/AR817x but I still have mixed feelings about writing a
driver at this moment.
Post by Eitan Adler
--
Eitan Adler
Eitan Adler
2013-01-02 02:48:16 UTC
Permalink
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
Post by Eitan Adler
Hey,
Are there any plans to support the AR8161/8165 chipset?
This decision made QAC to overhaul Linux driver
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
(alx) to follow Linux's decision and their priority was to get a
stable Linux driver. It was long time ago and I don't know current
status.
:(
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
QAC already donated a couple of engineering samples so I guess it
wouldn't take a long time for me to write a driver for
AR816x/AR817x but I still have mixed feelings about writing a
driver at this moment.
Why the mixed feelings? The more hardware we support out of the box
the more likely it is that users will stick with FreeBSD.

If I could tell people that "yes, this laptop completely works with
FreeBSD" that would be awesome.
--
Eitan Adler
Joseph A. Nagy, Jr
2013-01-02 03:37:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
Post by Eitan Adler
Hey,
Are there any plans to support the AR8161/8165 chipset?
This decision made QAC to overhaul Linux driver
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
(alx) to follow Linux's decision and their priority was to get a
stable Linux driver. It was long time ago and I don't know current
status.
:(
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
QAC already donated a couple of engineering samples so I guess it
wouldn't take a long time for me to write a driver for
AR816x/AR817x but I still have mixed feelings about writing a
driver at this moment.
Why the mixed feelings? The more hardware we support out of the box
the more likely it is that users will stick with FreeBSD.
If I could tell people that "yes, this laptop completely works with
FreeBSD" that would be awesome.
If I might jump in, I would love to tell people I know the same thing,
but I cannot because /my/ wifi card isn't supported (and, as I
understand it, mine is because the hw vendor apparently likes it like that).

I am finding FreeBSD to be great on a desktop/server, but I need to be
mobile with my laptop and not tied to an ethernet card or a ndist hack
that may or may not cause a kernel panic.
--
Yours in Christ,

Joseph A Nagy Jr
"Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, But he who hates correction
is stupid." -- Proverbs 12:1
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
Original content CopyFree (F) under the OWL http://owl.apotheon.org
YongHyeon PYUN
2013-01-02 04:33:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
Post by Eitan Adler
Hey,
Are there any plans to support the AR8161/8165 chipset?
This decision made QAC to overhaul Linux driver
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
(alx) to follow Linux's decision and their priority was to get a
stable Linux driver. It was long time ago and I don't know current
status.
:(
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
QAC already donated a couple of engineering samples so I guess it
wouldn't take a long time for me to write a driver for
AR816x/AR817x but I still have mixed feelings about writing a
driver at this moment.
Why the mixed feelings? The more hardware we support out of the box
the more likely it is that users will stick with FreeBSD.
Having direct vendor support has huge benefit to FreeBSD community
and the vendor used to express their willingness to support
FreeBSD. I'm afraid the vendor loses interests on supporting
FreeBSD if the vendor find a community maintained driver.
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
If I could tell people that "yes, this laptop completely works with
FreeBSD" that would be awesome.
--
Eitan Adler
Eitan Adler
2013-01-02 15:02:31 UTC
Permalink
Post by YongHyeon PYUN
Having direct vendor support has huge benefit to FreeBSD community
and the vendor used to express their willingness to support
FreeBSD. I'm afraid the vendor loses interests on supporting
FreeBSD if the vendor find a community maintained driver.
This is a valid concern. Perhaps we could reach out to them and find
out what their current interest level is?
--
Eitan Adler
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