5/2.5Gb Ethernet To USB Aquantia AQtion Driver Coming For Linux 4.21

Now queued in the networking subsystem's "-next" branch ahead of the Linux 4.21 cycle is the Aquantia AQtion driver, which is for new hardware supporting USB-based 2.5Gb and 5Gb Ethernet support.

In 2017 Aquantia introduced their AQtion 5G/2.5G adapters for PCI Express multi-Gigabit networking while now they are working on USB-based adapters with the same capabilities. Unfortunately details on these USB-based AQtion adapters is light outside from this Linux kernel patchwork. The USB adapters are based on the AQC111U/AQC112 ASICs.

The driver and hardware can still scale down to 100M speeds where necessary. This new "Aquantia-usb" Linux kernel driver does support all standard networking features expected out of modern Linux Ethernet drivers.

With the new driver queued, come Linux 4.21 the kernel should be supporting the Aquantia AQtion USB to 5GbE dongles out-of-the-box for when the hardware ships.

This new driver comes following Intel's new 2.5G "IGC" driver in Linux 4.20. Hopefully 2019 is finally going to be the year that more consumer hardware moves to 2.5G/5G.