# Ethernet Cards Support



## GianDO76 (Jul 19, 2015)

Hello everyone,
Knowing that FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD, I ask if support for network cards is the same. I mean, I have a PC on which there are two network cards, an integrated, Qualcomm Atheros AR8171 and the other Attansic RTL8168B on PC-Express 1x slot. On this PC I installed FreeNAS 9.3 and I saw that both cards are supported. Then I decided to give it a try to install FreeBSD 9.3 and I saw that neither are supported, it is the same also in NAS4Free 9.3. Why? If both are based on image of FreeBSD 9.3 why the cards are only supported in FreeNAS? It is possible that the list of supported hardware in FreeNAS has been "stretched"?

thanks
G.


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## wblock@ (Jul 19, 2015)

FreeNAS and other appliance-type software like pfSense and OPNsense might backport drivers from later versions of FreeBSD.  Or they might add PCI IDs of cards that are already supported but not known by their vendor IDs.  They might do that because of having a relatively long release cycle, and not forcing customers to upgrade.

The Attansic card part number suggests it is really a RealTek 8168B, already supported by the re(4) driver.  I think that FreeBSD 10-Stable supports the Atheros card with the alc(4) driver, but do not have the card to test.


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## protocelt (Jul 19, 2015)

I have an Atheros AR8171 chipset in one of my notebook PCs and it does work in 10-STABLE. Not sure when support for the chipset landed at the moment however. It may make it into 10.2-RELEASE.


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## GianDO76 (Jul 20, 2015)

protocelt said:


> I have an Atheros AR8171 chipset in one of my notebook PCs and it does work in 10-STABLE. Not sure when support for the chipset landed at the moment however. It may make it into 10.2-RELEASE.



How can I download the 10-STABLE version?


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## protocelt (Jul 20, 2015)

You can download 10.2-BETA2 from here: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/10.2/


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## GianDO76 (Jul 21, 2015)

protocelt said:


> You can download 10.2-BETA2 from here: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/10.2/



OK thanks, but I would download 10-STABLE?


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## kpa (Jul 21, 2015)

GianDO76 said:


> OK thanks, but I would download 10-STABLE?



Right now the two are the same, 10.2-BETA2 builds are made from stable/10 branch. Release candidates of 10.2 will be different story though, they will be built from releng/10.2 branch that hasn't been created yet.


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## GianDO76 (Jul 21, 2015)

kpa said:


> Right now the two are the same, 10.2-BETA2 builds are made from stable/10 branch. Release candidates of 10.2 will be different story though, they will be built from releng/10.2 branch that hasn't been created yet.



Okay, so you're telling me that I can not Download the 10-STABLE because it is not present in the directory of FreeBSD site and it is replaced by 10.2-BETA2?


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## wblock@ (Jul 21, 2015)

10.2-BETA2 is a snapshot of 10-STABLE.  The names vary as we approach a new release.


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## GianDO76 (Jul 21, 2015)

OK, I tried 10.2-BETA2 and a network interface alc0 appeared, but unfortunately it seems that there is no corresponding version of NAS4Free. Someone say it should be out in late August a NAS4Free version 10.2, but until then there is a beta version.


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