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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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  • Unfortunately USB A -> A cables aren't really a thing - two USB host devices (and both a PC and the Nintendo Switch will be host-only) can't talk to each other over USB. It is possible with some devices (such as Android phones) to share the computer's internet connection with the phone over USB (reverse tethering) - but the switch isn't one of those. I'm afraid you'll probably have to buy an Ethernet switch and USB adapter for the Nintendo switch... – Jonas Czech May 22 '20 at 11:57
  • I was asking since for usb2 you just got your data+ data- power and ground wires, maybe there was a software solution to make one of the ports in the desktop act as a device instead of a host, but I imagine when nothing has surfaced in my googling I'm missing something important. – metichi May 22 '20 at 12:16
  • To start with, which Linux distro have you installed (Ubuntu server, Ubuntu desktop, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Mint, et al.), & which release number? Different releases have different tools for us to recommend. Please click [edit] & add that to your question, so all facts we need are in the question. Please don't use Add Comment, since that's our one-way channel to you. All facts about your PC should go in the Question with [edit] – K7AAY May 22 '20 at 15:54

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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