I'd like to install the free ESXi hypervisor on a PC with a Realtek 8168 Gigabit NIC. However, ESXi 6.5 U1 does not have a built-in driver for this NIC. There are community supported drivers, but they all seem to require that you incorporate them into the ISO with various tools that require a full vSphere license (PowerCLI.) Since I do not have the ability to use PowerCLI, how can I build a custom image?
Side note: Why is this so hard to do? Why can't I just drop the driver file onto my ESXi USB installer and be done with it? That's the way most operating systems work...