Switch x64/arm64 kernels to in-kernel r8169 for RTL8168/8125/8126#124
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The Realtek vendor r8125 driver, as built here, rewrites the adapter MAC and arms WoL/D3 on its shutdown path, leaving the NIC at 00:00:00:00:00:00 until a cold power cycle (#108). The x86 build already uses the in-kernel r8169 driver and never showed this; x64 and arm64 were still on the vendor drivers. Flip x64 and arm64 to CONFIG_R8169=y and drop the vendor R8125/R8126/R8127/R8168 drivers, matching x86. Embed the matching rtl8125*/rtl8168* NIC firmware into bzImage via CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE (arm64 already carried it; x64 needed it added because the vendor r8168 driver shipped firmware in-source). Tradeoffs: drops vendor RTL8127 10GbE support (no in-kernel replacement in 6.18); r8169 WoL on 2.5G Realtek can be inconsistent on some boards. Under hardware validation before merge. Refs: #108 Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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The Realtek vendor r8125 driver, as built here, rewrites the adapter MAC and arms WoL/D3 on its shutdown path, leaving the NIC at
00:00:00:00:00:00until a cold power cycle (#108). The x86 build already uses the in-kernel r8169 driver and never showed this; x64 and arm64 were still on the vendor drivers.What this does
Flips x64 and arm64 to
CONFIG_R8169=yand drops the vendor R8125/R8126/R8127/R8168 drivers, matching x86. Embeds the matchingrtl8125*/rtl8168*NIC firmware into bzImage viaCONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE(arm64 already carried it; x64 needed it added, because the vendor r8168 driver shipped its firmware in-source).Touches only
configs/kernelx64.configandconfigs/kernelarm64.config.Tradeoffs
Validation status
An x64 experimental release is out. As of this merge we have not received hardware confirmation back from the reporters on #108 — merging ahead of that is a deliberate call, not an oversight. The original commit was written with "under hardware validation before merge"; that condition has been consciously waived to unblock work stacked on top of this.
If the change regresses, it is two config files and reverts cleanly.
Refs #108
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