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I have my office quite a distance away from my wifi AP, with my desktop connected with a single ethernet cable, and the game console docked in the same room.

Right now, in order to give it internet, I'm having to use a USB wifi adaptor to create a wifi hotspot that only the console connects to, I have been looking into giving it a wired connection but the idea of having to buy an ethernet switch just to add another device and then a USB to ethernet adapter seems like quite an expense and not worth the trouble cable-managing.

Would it be possible to use a USB A-A cable so my desktop acts as an ethernet to usb adapter itself?

Edit: Forgot to mention I'm running ubuntu desktop 20.04

metichi
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1 Answers1

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Unfortunately USB A -> A cables aren't really a thing

They are a thing.

Here's one example: https://www.startech.com/Networking-IO/USB-PS2/usb-file-transfer-cable-windows-mac~USB3LINK

Here's another: https://www.datapro.net/products/usb-3-0-super-speed-a-a-debugging-cable.html

The first cable is an active cable that "pretends" to be two ethernet or serial adapters back to back. The benefit of this is that it's a single cable that should not require any special drivers on either host, but since it's not actually two adapters then it can "cheat" in providing 5 Gbps data throughput.

The second cable is a passive cable. As the description of the cable states on the web page this is a cable with limited support for data transfer. Both ends have to be set up for this specific kind of cable for this to work. As far as I can see there has not been much in development in making this an easy to set up connection. For something like a Nintendo Switch there isn't a whole lot an end user can do to make this work. There's a limited number of devices the Nintendo Switch will recognize and support. The active transfer cable may work. Given the cost and high possibility of it not working it is likely easier, and cheaper, to buy a couple USB to Ethernet adapters and connect them with a short Ethernet cable from your spare parts drawer.

When it comes to the setting up the sharing of the internet connection there's been advice covering this before here: Share wireless Internet connection through ethernet

MacGuffin
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