Wangxun WX1860 Gigabit Ethernet NICs
A family of PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet network adapters built around Wangxun's WX1860 controller, used in server and embedded NICs (often regional, China-market) such as the LR-Link LRES2025PT quad-port and similar dual-port cards still being sold new.
recommendation
It should stay in the kernel because the Wangxun WX1860 chipset is still being shipped in new commercial Gigabit Ethernet adapters in 2025, and upstream patch activity through 2025 and into 2026 shows the driver is actively maintained with ongoing feature work and fixes. No other in-tree driver covers these PCI IDs, so removing it would orphan hardware that is currently for sale.
repository signals
sources
- spinics.net
Netdev patch series dated August 21, 2025 includes active ngbe work such as default ITR changes and adaptive RX/TX coalescing, touching ngbe_main.c and ngbe_ethtool.c.
- spinics.net
Netdev patch series from 2026 shows ongoing Wangxun/ngbe maintenance and cleanup rather than removal, including ngbe WOL and reset-flow changes.
- lrnic.com
A current commercial quad-port Gigabit adapter is marketed as WX1860A4-based, indicating the chipset family is still sold in new hardware.
- lrnic.com
A current commercial dual-port Gigabit adapter is marketed as WX1860A2-based, reinforcing continued new-hardware availability for the supported PCI IDs.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local shell inspection (`rg`, `sed`) in the kernel tree showed this is a real PCIe NIC driver with Wangxun WX1860A* device IDs and MODULE_DESCRIPTION "WangXun(R) Gigabit PCI Express Network Driver". Local shell `git -c safe.directory=... log` showed substantive ngbe fixes/features through 2025 and no path-local deprecation/removal history; a grep for remove/deprecate only found ordinary cleanup. Web search located two netdev archive pages (spinics, both linking lore.kernel.org threads) showing active ngbe patch series in 2025 and 2026, so upstream attention is current. Web search also found live product pages for WX1860A2/A4-based NICs, so hardware is still sold new; deployments look niche/regional and embedded/server-oriented rather than broad mainstream. No upstream replacement driver covers the same PCI IDs, so removal/deprecation is not supported by the evidence.