{"id":241049,"date":"2026-05-07T12:03:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/linux-7-2-to-support-realtek-rtl8159-10gbe-usb-ethernet\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T12:30:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:30:06","slug":"linux-7-2-to-support-realtek-rtl8159-10gbe-usb-ethernet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/linux-7-2-to-support-realtek-rtl8159-10gbe-usb-ethernet\/","title":{"rendered":"Linux 7.2 To Support Realtek RTL8159 10GbE USB Ethernet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linux 7.2 To Support Realtek RTL8159 10GbE USB Ethernet<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.phoronix.com\/news\/Realtek-RTL8159-Linux-7.2<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-07 12:03:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.phoronix.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The Realtek RTL8159 has been appearing in some 10G-rated USB network adapters at online retailers, some for less than $100 USD. But currently the RTL8159 is only supported by Realtek’s out-of-tree Linux kernel driver, but fortunately there will be mainline support coming with the Linux 7.2 kernel this summer.<\/p>\n

The Realtek RTL8159 is used as a 10Gbit USB Ethernet chipset and support within the mainline Linux kernel is now expected for Linux 7.2. Open-source developer Birger Koblitz worked on this support for the mainline r8152 Ethernet driver and used the code based upon the out-of-tree r8152 driver maintained by Realtek.\n<\/p>\n

With this merge to the Linux networking subsystem’s “net-next” Git branch, the RTL8159 USB network adapters should be working.\n<\/p>\n

It should be noted there are some firmware obstacles to deal with but hopefully shortly the necessary firmware will appear in the linux-firmware.git branch. Koblitz noted in the merge:
\n<\/p>\n

“The RTL8159 requires firmware for the PHY in order to achieve a 10GBit link speed. Without firmware, only 5GBit were achieved. The firmware can be extracted from the out-of-tree r8152 driver-code where it is stored in the ram17 u8-array. Code is added to use the existing firmware upload mechanism of the driver for the RTL8157\/9 PHY firmware code. The firmware will be submitted separately to linux-firmware.”
\n
So look for this mainline Realtek RTL8159 support with Linux 7.2+.<\/p>\n

\"Xikestor<\/p>\n

The RTL8159 is already found within some USB network adapters, some of which retail for under $100 USD such as the XikeStor 10G USB3.2+ adapter for $99 USD on Amazon (affiliate link).
\n
Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linux 7.2 To Support Realtek RTL8159 10GbE USB Ethernet https:\/\/www.phoronix.com\/news\/Realtek-RTL8159-Linux-7.2 Publish Date: 2026-05-07 12:03:00 Source…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":241051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.phoronix.net\/image.php?id=2026&image=xikestor_10g","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-241049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241049"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241054,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241049\/revisions\/241054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}