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High availability / Re: realtek failures
« on: September 13, 2023, 12:09:58 pm »
I think I can confirm that realtek is terrible at present under any BSD kernel. Particularly from the beelink G35 series, as these do seem to be older hardware sold at discount prices (i.e. cheap). But I have seen this behavior, under many different manufacturers many of the models are very new. This also happens under PFsense (though I would never use their crap under production, I do test it), and generic FreeBSD. However, when putting debian in charge of the hardware and then handing opnsense virtio networking everything seems to have stabilized. I will note that it is best to make debian use static IP addresses. If you want to avoid these complications overall I suggest finding hardware that does not have realtek networking hardware, intel hardware in particular seems to work better than anything else, I have heard from friends in the biz that they pay for all the patents of various things. In particular, this is drastic amongst wifi hardware. I have recently taken to replacing the wifi chips in any laptops that I can, and I have noticed dramatic improvements in not only general reception, but now I can connect in busy public wifi spots that I have never had decent reception before. Here is an example of a modestly priced computer that runs OPNsense great and has intel hardware: https://amzn.to/3PBh0wB
and here is an example of a replacement wifi chip for laptops:
https://amzn.to/44PPCze
TLDR realtek is terrible and should be avoided at all costs, otherwise put debian or some other linux on it and then give an opnsense VM kvm's virtio networking.
and here is an example of a replacement wifi chip for laptops:
https://amzn.to/44PPCze
TLDR realtek is terrible and should be avoided at all costs, otherwise put debian or some other linux on it and then give an opnsense VM kvm's virtio networking.