New cheap Asus XG-C100C NIC

Mike77

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Hi,

A couple of weeks ago I read about the Asus XG-C100C Nic. Has anyone already done any testing/any experience with this Nic one a FreeNAS Machine?
 
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Ericloewe

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I highly doubt there's even a driver planned for it, as of when I'm writing this. It's a completely new vendor (Aquantia) and Asus is only providing Windows and Linux drivers.
 

Mike77

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I highly doubt there's even a driver planned for it, as of when I'm writing this. It's a completely new vendor (Aquantia) and Asus is only providing Windows and Linux drivers.

Too bad. I'd think this would be great for home builds, if it would live up to the specs of course, and would do all the processing like some Intel NIC's. Asus could break open/corner the market for fast LAN at home. I didn't find any other NIC's even close to the price of this one. Maybe Asus will pick this up, seeing that homebuilders are also early adopters, and not just the gamers.

EDIT (bad English)
 
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JDCynical

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I highly doubt there's even a driver planned for it, as of when I'm writing this. It's a completely new vendor (Aquantia) and Asus is only providing Windows and Linux drivers.
For giggles, I pulled the linux driver and opened the tarball.

I didn't look too deeply, but I'm not seeing any binary blobs in it, and the GNU license is displayed on every .h and .c file in the ./src directory.

Also, from the readme:

License
=======

aQuantia Corporation Network Driver
Copyright(c) 2014 - 2017 aQuantia Corporation.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License,
version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation.

It looks like it's perfectly doable, but finding someone to spend the time in porting it, that's the catch :)
 

Ericloewe

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GPL might be problematic, though. They might be open to distributing it under a different license, though.
 

Nazara

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Looks like Asus don't have any plans for FreeBSD drivers. I emailed them about this yesterday and I just a response back:

Dear mister/madam,

Thank you for contacting Asus Technical Support.

We checked this further and currently there are no plans to release FreeBSD drivers for the Asus XG-C100C networkcard. When released they will be available through the following Asus website:

https://www.asus.com/Networking/XG-C100C/HelpDesk_Download/

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.

Kind regards,

Mark Scholten
Asus Holland Bv.
Registreer product
Chat
Tel:0031591570290
Asus Technical Support Site: http://support.asus.com
 

Mike77

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What e-mail address?
 
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Arwen

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Perhaps the real solution is to contact the chip vendor and request FreeBSD drivers from them.
At present, they only seem to have Windows and Linux drivers. Here is a link to there home page;

http://www.aquantia.com/
 

Nazara

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So I went ahead and emailed Aquantia directly (info@aquantia.com), and got a response back fairly quickly.

Dear,

We currently do not have a FreeBSD driver yet. We plan to develop FreeBSD driver for our AQC107 controller but it will not happen in the near future.
I will let you know when we have a set schedule.

Regards,

Kenny
 

CJRoss

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No drivers is unfortunate. It would solve half of the problem with making 10G affordable. Switches being the other half.

I may pick up one for my desktop and go Intel for the servers.
 

Stux

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I highly doubt there's even a driver planned for it, as of when I'm writing this. It's a completely new vendor (Aquantia) and Asus is only providing Windows and Linux drivers.

wikipedia page has some interesting factoids


Aquantia acquired the 10GBASE-T assets of PLX Technology in September 2012.[5] PLX had picked them up in September 2010 from Teranetics.[6]

Everyone's favourite PCIe switch vendor...

Funnily enough, their 10GBASET-T PHY was released in 2012...

In 2004, Aquantia was founded to revolutionize Ethernet and accelerate connectivity. Aquantia first delivered products for Data Center connectivity, and in 2012 developed the world's first integrated 10GBASE-T MAC/PHY for servers

I wonder if they just acquired patents... or an actual design.
 

Mike77

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Stux, I just don't know what to do with your reply. It's just you FreeNAS Gurus/Wizards e.d. talking right?

So no drivers in the near future, and no easily affordable 10Gbit NICs for me. Well, I'll just have to wait.

Thanks guys
 
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Arwen

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Stux, I just don't know what to do with your reply. It's just you FreeNAS Gurus/Wizards e.d. talking right?

So no drivers in the near future, and no easily affordable 10Gbit NICs for me. Well, I'll just have to wait.

Thanks guys
Yes, you will either have to wait or find another solution.

In general, chip vendors target high volume. For software support, that means Microsoft Windows and today, many times Linux. Some other companies like HP Enterprise or the old Sun Microsystems, would either write their own drivers, or work with the chip vendor to get drivers for their custom OS, (HP-UX or Solaris). But, in the case of lower volume OSes, like FreeBSD, it simply takes time. And if the chip is not popular, then it may never be supported.

One way some people deal with the issue is to buy a card or 2 and give them to open source software developer(s) who write the appropriate drivers. In this case, FreeBSD network card driver developers. Natually a condition of the gift, is a working driver within a reasonable amount of time, (months, not years). These trades generally don't happen at our level, (users). It happens when a small shop, (small business, research group, educational or government), wants it working and considers the cost of the cards trivial compared to the results.

I've written 3 or 4 printer drivers, and for one, I accepted a printer as payment. (It was early color inkjet days, so it was a good deal all around.)

But, back to reality, 10GBase-T is still not affordable. And still may take a year or more.
 

Ericloewe

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Ericloewe

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I'd be surprised if that hack still worked moderately well these days. Even if it does, I don't think performance would be acceptable for a 10GbE adapter.
 

Jailer

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One way some people deal with the issue is to buy a card or 2 and give them to open source software developer(s) who write the appropriate drivers.
If there were a dev willing to do this I'd be more than happy to provide one to them to work with. Guys like me that can't code or do any other useful or meaningful contributions have to help out somehow.
 

Arwen

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If there were a dev willing to do this I'd be more than happy to provide one to them to work with. Guys like me that can't code or do any other useful or meaningful contributions have to help out somehow.
Simply join one of the FreeBSD forum or mail list related to networking. Read for a bit, a week or 2, then approach the group and see if anyone bites. When they do, check out that persons prior work via github or such before sending a card. Plus, come up with a plan you both agree on, to both test it, and set a reasonable time limit, like 3 months for the working prototype driver. Or they return the card in working order.

To be clear, this is a long term project. This would not show up in FreeNAS for a while, (maybe 6 months), AFTER the driver works with FreeBSD head.
 

pro lamer

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