# The support of AR8161/8165 chipset



## time1 (Jan 11, 2014)

Does anyone know when the AR8161/8165 chipset will be supported in FreeBSD?


----------



## gentoobob (Jan 11, 2014)

https://wiki.freebsd.org/dev/ath_hal(4)/HardwareSupport


----------



## time1 (Jan 12, 2014)

And? There is nothing about my card.


```
class=0x20000 card=0x200f1043 chip=0x10911969 rev=0x10 hdr=0x00

vendor Atheros Communications
class network
subclass ethernet
```


----------



## trh411 (Jan 12, 2014)

I think @gentoobob assumed the AR8161 was a WiFi card, not an Ethernet card. AFAICT from the mailing list archives, the AR8161 is not currently supported and there are no immediate plans to support it. See below for reference, although that reference is from April 2013. You might want to ask this question on the freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list.

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hardware/2013-April/007272.html


----------



## gentoobob (Jan 14, 2014)

Yes I did.  I apologize.  Not often you come across a NIC that's not supported.


----------



## time1 (Jan 29, 2014)

I really need this driver for my laptop. What should I do?


----------



## trh411 (Jan 29, 2014)

Unfortunately, there is no driver support in FreeBSD for your AR8161 NIC. That means you have to look for alternatives or scrap the idea of running FreeBSD on the laptop. The only thing I can suggest as an alternative is a USB NIC. Just make sure the chipset is supported by FreeBSD before you buy.


----------



## time1 (Jan 31, 2014)

Hm, so it will not be supported?!


----------



## trh411 (Jan 31, 2014)

time1 said:
			
		

> Hm, so it will not be supported?!


As I have already stated, last I saw it will probably be supported eventually, but there is no current timetable for it, although that info was almost a year old and I have seen nothing recent on the issue. I suggested 2 weeks ago that you ask your question on the freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list if you want an update as to its status. Did you? That is the best place to ask. The developers who build drivers for FreeBSD tend not to frequent these forums. They usually stick to the mailing lists.


----------



## trh411 (Feb 1, 2014)

Thought you would be interested in this question asked on the freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list:

```
Hi all. I really need driver for AR8161/8165 chipset

class=0x20000 card=0x200f1043 chip=0x10911969 rev=0x10 hdr=0x00
vendor Atheros Communications
class network
subclass ethernet

for my new notebook asus pu500ca

Please say will be the support of this chipset? Asking very much!!!
```
I'll let you know what the response it.


----------



## time1 (Feb 1, 2014)

It was me  :e


----------



## trh411 (Feb 1, 2014)

time1 said:
			
		

> It was me  :e


Great. Hope you get an answer that works for you.

Sorry, I didn't connect the email address on the mailing list with your Forums user name.  :e


----------



## IvanATUAdm (Feb 18, 2014)

Hi all,

Does anybody know a fast recipe how to port driver from Linux? (I know about normal way)

I also have the same NIC.


----------



## SirDice (Feb 18, 2014)

IvanATUAdm said:
			
		

> Does anybody know a fast recipe how to port driver from Linux? (I know about normal way)


I'm not a developer but I don't think there's a "fast recipe", the systems are quite different. Also keep in mind we can't accept GPL code in the kernel.


----------



## kpa (Feb 18, 2014)

SirDice said:
			
		

> IvanATUAdm said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not just different but completely from different planet alltogether. All the porting efforts of Linux drivers to FreeBSD have been more like taking the Linux driver completely apart and try to see what it does and then create the FreeBSD driver from scratch using the information gathered from the Linux driver. There really is no fast recipe for such job because both systems have very different origins and there is almost nothing in common on the kernel level between the two.


----------



## Anil-G (Feb 23, 2015)

Does anyone have a .SYS and .INF for Atheros AR8161 on Win XP 64 bit? I'm trying to follow the manual using ndisgen(8) but I can't actually get hold of the INF and SYS files. Actually I've got these:

```
145K Feb 23 21:10 l1c51x64.cat
495K Feb 23 21:10 l1c51x64.inf
112K Feb 23 21:10 l1c51x64.sys
```
But I don't think they've even got sensible content for ndisgen(8) to parse: 
	
	



```
ndiscvt: line 4294:  : syntax error CONVERSION FAILED
```
Apparently wrong encoding ("Unicode") as well although that may have been converted.


----------

