Support USB-Ethernet & Wi-Fi adapters in TEZI

Feature Request:

  • [High Priority] Support USB-Ethernet adapters (e.g. Realtek RTL8153 chip and Asix AX88179 are extremely common, as well as some new 2.5G adapters)
  • [Medium Priority] Support Wi-Fi in TEZI (connection would only be at runtime and not saved)

Context:

  • One of the advantages of TEZI is the ability to quickly install latest images via a network connection. However, it depends on the availability of a native Ethernet port.
  • For boards without Ethernet ports, this would open up new capabilities for developers and certain manufacturing workflows.
  • The complexity to enable these drivers should be quite straight forward.

Hi @ericw!

The USB-Ethernet adapters are enabled as kernel modules in our BSP7. This means you can use them as needed. However, if you’d like to ensure they are always available at boot time, you can modify the menuconfig to build them within the kernel image.

Regarding the Wi-Fi Support in TEZI, we are not planning to do this in the near future. Beyond the UI changes that would be required, TEZI is part of the product, so introducing such a change would require issuing a new PCN and could potentially impact many of our current customers.

That said, you can still load images via an Ethernet cable, a USB drive, or an SD card (please refer to this article).

Best regards,
Lucas Azeituno