2.5 GbE ethernet adapter

roterdrachen · December 20, 2021 at 11:52 AM

Hello, as 2.5 GbE adapter is becoming more common I kindly want to ask if there are 2.5GbE adapters that are supported in LibreELEC? As I see the most cheap USB 3.0 2.5GbE ethernet adapters are based on the Realtek RTL8125B chip. I also have here 3 Odroid-N2+ with CoreELEC installed that have that RTL8125B driver installed and one of them has one attached. I read in another post there probably will not be any drivers in the official build. I do not know why? What is the problem? The vast majority of 2.5GbE USB3 ethernet controllers are RTL8125B based (have a look at Amazon)

I think about buying a fanless x86 mini pc (Liva Z3) and to add an additional 2.5 GbE adapter. So it must not be a Realtek USB3 adapter (?), perhaps there is an Intel i225 2.5 GbE USB3.0 adapter that will work? Or another?

In short, is there a USB3.0 2.5GbE ethernet adapter out there that will work out of the box with an x86 mini pc, e.g. the Liva Z3? Or 5GbE ? Any above 1GbE? Personally I do not want to search modified LibreELEC images which maybe outdated. Mainly because I established 2.5GbE here in my home.

Michael

**chewitt** · December 20, 2021 at 2:28 PM

The upstream kernel has support for the PCIe version of the RTL8125B adapter, but I'm not sure about USB. If it's supported it will either just work out of the box we can add the kernel config needed for that. If it requires and out-of-tree driver, you are welcome to self-compile an LE image with it included. If that's not your thing, we're sorry, but we have been refusing to add more crappy Realtek drivers to our images for about 2.5 years now and have no plan to go back on the decision. Including more of their shitty drivers in a distro like CE which never bumps kernel version isn't much drama. In LE where the kenel bumps frequently and Realtek drivers break with every bump .. the novelty of hunting down patches wears off (some time ago).

NB: LE does not need "fastest" Ethernet speeds, although fast is never bad. We only need Ethenet to be "fast enough" and Gb is fast enough for 80GB disc rips, so it's not a high-demand topic. I've no idea about other 2.5Gb adapters, but we will have no issue enabling kernel config for any needed; under the same rules (in-kernel is good, out-of-tree is bad).

2.5 GbE ethernet adapter

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