RTL8111C driver for FBSD7

[Manolis Kiagias]

Da Rock wrote:
> Hey, hey... I made a boo boo and ordered a unit with this nic onboard
> (truthfully, I never thought I'd have any trouble since I had done this
> before). Loaded 7 and couldn't find the nic. A little investigation
> found that the nic was the above, and a little further found that there
> was no support for it in the hcl's.
>
> Now I do find it hard to believe there is no way around this- I found a
> driver for FBSD4.5-6, is there one for 6.2 or higher? Or will this one
> work? Anyone know how to install it?
>
> The driver is only a c and a h file- Makefile is an empty file, and the
> readme tells me to rebuild the kernel after removing rl and re in the
> conf. Then I build the driver, and kldload it. Any idea why I'd have to
> rebuild the kernel?
>
> Cheers guys
>
>
>   
I've seen this driver too (I've investigated for a friend who bought a 
similar motherboard that otherwise works with 7). The readme describes 
two "methods" of installation but the first one simply does not apply 
(there is no modules directory in the download). I have not tried the 
second method (looks reasonable though). Removing the rl and re from the 
kernel will remove the built-in support (it could conflict with the new 
driver) and create a module for the new driver. Note that you are also 
asked to replace the files in the FreeBSD src directories.  In fact it 
is better to build as a module - building it into the kernel may well 
leave you with an unbootable kernel if it is not compatible.

As I said, I have not done this (my friend will be running Linux on this 
box) but as more and more recent mobos seem to use this NIC - and I may 
be buying one- if you are willing to give it a try, I will be interested 
in the results.