3 ms·

Support for Aquantia AQC113 and AQC113C Ethernet Controllers on FreeBSD

16 points by justinclift 8mo ago

justinclift 8mo ago
Useful for anyone using FreeBSD with one of the 10GbE chipsets, as commonly found in minipcs these days. This driver seems to be working well for people. :)
WarOnPrivacy 8mo ago
10GBe cards with these start at $55 on Amazon.
amelius 8mo ago
Shouldn't AI be smart enough now to translate drivers from Linux to FreeBSD? It's mostly plumbing after all.
- AdrianB1 8mo ago
  No, AI is anything but "smart". And my understanding is that the network stack is so well done in FreeBSD that it is a shame to touch it with AI code.
  - amelius 8mo ago
    Well it doesn't cost much to try it, and you can always replace it by a handcrafted version later.
    - quietsegfault 8mo ago
      It cost me my weekly Claude usage! I was on Claude timeout for like 4 days.
- quietsegfault 8mo ago
  I had one of these interfaces and the driver kept freezing in Linux. Me ‘n Claude were not able to figure out why. Super sad.
- justinclift 7mo ago
  That's how this specific seems to be getting developed: https://github.com/Aquantia/aqtion-freebsd/issues/32#issuecomment-3997341698 https://github.com/Aquantia/aqtion-freebsd/issues/32#issueco...
AdrianB1 8mo ago
Just curious, most people that use FreeBSD are either experts or hardcode enthusiasts. It used to include FreeNAS/TrueNAS users, but they migrated to Linux as the product moved to Linux. That means the users of FreeBSD are not the ones I would expect to purchase and use these controllers, but other options like 10 Gbps with SFP+ (AOC or Fiber Optic) or even 25Gbps and higher. Is there a significant demand for this driver? A 10 Gbps SFP+ card is cheaper and more flexible, I have a few in several computers and even a few laying around as spares, they are also more compatible with all sorts of OS-es and usually more capable.
- justinclift 8mo ago
  Quite a lot of popular, widely deployed firewalls are based upon FreeBSD. And for them it's a problem that miniPCs well suited for firewall use have been been coming out (for a while now) using this chipset. Which FreeBSD didn't support. So for those projects, this may provide an avenue of hope or future potential. ;)
  - justinclift 7mo ago
    Following up on this, it looks like this updated driver is now in the OPNsense ports: https://github.com/opnsense/ports/commit/cdb12fdc156a6 https://github.com/opnsense/ports/commit/cdb12fdc156a6
- adrian_b 8mo ago
  I use cards like those described by you (with DAC cables) for connections between FreeBSD servers (actually between servers, regardless if they run FreeBSD or Linux). However, I also need to connect some desktop/laptop PCs to a FreeBSD server, either for management or for transferring backups, where a cheaper Aquantia NIC is perfectly adequate, especially when the PC has only a 2.5 Gb/s or 5 Gb/s Ethernet interface. In the past, I had to buy an Intel server NIC for one of my FreeBSD servers, despite the fact that I had a spare Aquantia NIC that would have worked fine, due to this driver problem. I was not happy about it, so I am glad to hear now that a working driver is available.

16 points by justinclift 8mo ago

Useful for anyone using FreeBSD with one of the 10GbE chipsets, as commonly found in minipcs these days. This driver seems to be working well for people. :)

WarOnPrivacy 8mo ago

10GBe cards with these start at $55 on Amazon.

amelius 8mo ago

Shouldn't AI be smart enough now to translate drivers from Linux to FreeBSD? It's mostly plumbing after all.

AdrianB1 8mo ago
No, AI is anything but "smart". And my understanding is that the network stack is so well done in FreeBSD that it is a shame to touch it with AI code.
- amelius 8mo ago
  Well it doesn't cost much to try it, and you can always replace it by a handcrafted version later.
  - quietsegfault 8mo ago
    It cost me my weekly Claude usage! I was on Claude timeout for like 4 days.
quietsegfault 8mo ago
I had one of these interfaces and the driver kept freezing in Linux. Me ‘n Claude were not able to figure out why. Super sad.
justinclift 7mo ago
That's how this specific seems to be getting developed: https://github.com/Aquantia/aqtion-freebsd/issues/32#issuecomment-3997341698 https://github.com/Aquantia/aqtion-freebsd/issues/32#issueco...

AdrianB1 8mo ago

Just curious, most people that use FreeBSD are either experts or hardcode enthusiasts. It used to include FreeNAS/TrueNAS users, but they migrated to Linux as the product moved to Linux. That means the users of FreeBSD are not the ones I would expect to purchase and use these controllers, but other options like 10 Gbps with SFP+ (AOC or Fiber Optic) or even 25Gbps and higher. Is there a significant demand for this driver? A 10 Gbps SFP+ card is cheaper and more flexible, I have a few in several computers and even a few laying around as spares, they are also more compatible with all sorts of OS-es and usually more capable.

justinclift 8mo ago
Quite a lot of popular, widely deployed firewalls are based upon FreeBSD. And for them it's a problem that miniPCs well suited for firewall use have been been coming out (for a while now) using this chipset. Which FreeBSD didn't support. So for those projects, this may provide an avenue of hope or future potential. ;)
- justinclift 7mo ago
  Following up on this, it looks like this updated driver is now in the OPNsense ports: https://github.com/opnsense/ports/commit/cdb12fdc156a6 https://github.com/opnsense/ports/commit/cdb12fdc156a6
adrian_b 8mo ago
I use cards like those described by you (with DAC cables) for connections between FreeBSD servers (actually between servers, regardless if they run FreeBSD or Linux). However, I also need to connect some desktop/laptop PCs to a FreeBSD server, either for management or for transferring backups, where a cheaper Aquantia NIC is perfectly adequate, especially when the PC has only a 2.5 Gb/s or 5 Gb/s Ethernet interface. In the past, I had to buy an Intel server NIC for one of my FreeBSD servers, despite the fact that I had a spare Aquantia NIC that would have worked fine, due to this driver problem. I was not happy about it, so I am glad to hear now that a working driver is available.