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Apple Driver Ethernet
Abdelkader Boudih edited this page Aug 24, 2026
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Upstream status: yes. Wired networking is the most reliable subsystem on Intel Macs and the standard fallback while WiFi work matures.
| NIC | Driver | Models | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx | bge(4) | Mac minis, iMacs, pre-retina MacBook Pros | works; T2 minis: BCM57766 has no EEPROM, MAC comes from a loader hint (142cba958b7a, 2026-06) |
| Marvell Yukon | msk(4) | MacBookPro3,1 era | works |
| Aquantia AQC107 10GbE | aq(4) | iMac Pro, 2018 mini option | not in fleet, untested |
| Thunderbolt GigE adapter | bge behind TB tunnel | any TB Mac | BCM57762 is in the bge ID table; needs the TB fabric up first |
| USB adapters | ure(4), axge(4), cdce(4) | retina laptops with no jack | works, this is what Apple expected you to buy |
- Retina-era laptops (2012 onward) have no built-in jack; the practical options are a USB 3 adapter (ure/axge) or the Thunderbolt GigE adapter. The TB adapter is a real bge(4) on a tunneled PCIe bus, so it depends on Apple-Driver-Thunderbolt enumerating before it exists as a device.
- Wake-on-LAN on Apple boards is gated by ACPI platform methods, not just NIC registers: see Apple-Driver-ACPI.
- T2 machines expose an NCM Ethernet gadget from the T2 itself in some modes (Apple internal use); not a supported NIC, ignore it.
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