Working around unsupported Ethernet card with PXE or UEFI?

[Thomas Mueller]

from Dave Cottlehuber:

> > On Fri, 21 Jun 2019, at 04:33, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> > Is it possible to build and install FreeBSD so as to be bootable and access the internet with an Ethernet card that doesn't work in FreeBSD?
       
> > Could Ethernet support be obtained through UEFI?
       
> > Or could FreeBSD be installed on another computer or on a NAS NFS share? NAS would probably not have TFTP but would have NFS and iSCSI capability.
       
> > Motherboard has PXE capability. Server OS for FreeBSD installation on other computer could be NetBSD, where the Ethernet (Realtek 8111E or 8168, re(4) driver) works well.


> Tom
> Hi Tom
> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/config-network-setup.html

> NDIS may do what you want but it may suck.

> In terms of time vs effort a 15$ USB Ethernet dongle is going to be your best result. If this is a server consider getting a 2nd hand intel NIC. I can get a 4 port pci intel Gb for under 100$ years which is more than sufficient.
> Lower spec cards will be even cheaper.

> There are references on the forums and mailing lists with ones that work for both USB and iNICs.

> Dave

NDIS is not dependable in my experience, and I have had instances of the kernel failing to compile with NDIS.

How dependable are USB Ethernet dongles to work with FreeBSD? 

How do I find the USB Ethernet dongles on the forums and mailing lists?  Needle in the haystack?

Tom