4 ms·

USB ethernet and tethering on Android is certainly one way. Keeping the phone powered can present interesting opportunities, but it works well. There's also o

by ssl-3 5mo ago

USB ethernet and tethering on Android is certainly one way. Keeping the phone powered can present interesting opportunities, but it works well. There's also other ways. Like USB tethering. Plug the computer into the Android phone with a regular USB cable that is already kicking around. No ethernet adapter required; the phone behaves as a network adapter in and of itself. The computer keeps the phone charged. This worked at least as far back as the OG Motorola Droid, in 2009. (Drivers may be a fun thing to get working depending on the OS, but that's just a software problem.) Or: Other hardware that is already laying around. The old home network router that has been hosting generations of spiders for over a decade, in a dusty cardboard box at the back of a closet next to the favorite pair of shoes that are simply too nice to ever get worn? There's a good chance that it's hackable and able to run custom firmware. Stuff a period-correct copy of OpenWRT or DD-WRT or Tomato or [something] into it, and turn it into a wifi client bridge so your old Ethernet stuff can chat on the wifi network. (I've had the big, color HP laser printer at the shop connected this way with a hacked Linksys WRT54G for very nearly two decades so far. Part of me says I should upgrade that box one of these years, but it still works fine and I find this amusing.) Or: Rube Goldberg minimalism. The Raspberry Pi Zero W that is in the drawer next to the extra key for the Ford that got sold a decade ago (and the spiders; there's always spiders): It runs Linux just fine. It talks wifi. It can talk RNDIS to a USB-connected Windows computer. It can therefore become a wifi-to-usb bridge, wherein the computer doesn't even know that it's talking to a wifi network. Drivers for this are built-ins as far back as XP and are downloadable for windows 9x. (The PC provides the power for the Zero W over the same cable that the data flows over.) There's lots of ways that many/most of us computer-types can get this done without spending a dime, or ever waiting for a delivery. :)

stirfish 5mo ago
"Generations of spiders" threw me there, I thought you were talking about web crawlers.
userbinator 5mo ago
Drivers may be a fun thing to get working depending on the OS, but that's just a software problem Android USB tethering uses the RNDIS standard, which I believe goes back to the Windows 95 era, so there's certainly no shortage of driver support.
- ssl-3 5mo ago
  I think RNDIS started as a built-in with XP, and there's MSFT-supplied drivers (now hosted at archive.org) that cover the win9x era. Someone wrote about that here: https://thp.io/2023/rpizero-usb-win98.html https://thp.io/2023/rpizero-usb-win98.html . As connecting old stuff to new stuff goes, it actually looks pretty straight-forward. :) But I've heard rumblings that Linux is dropping/has dropped RNDIS from the kernel. That's unfortunate; it may be broken and ugly, but it's useful and I like useful things. (Those interested in the uber-security can just never install the kernel module, I'd like to think.) And I've never spent much quality time with a Mac[1]. I'm lead to believe that RNDIS is a third-party thing there. But, sure: It's all solvable. For getting an old PC online with parts already on-hand, it might even be worth solving. The amount of fun this entails just depends on the OS. :) [1]: I once had a stunningly-beautiful dumpster-score G4 iMac with an absolutely gorgeous 20" screen, the SuperDrive, and all the RAM. If it had any pores on its flawless exterior, then those pores would have had an effluence of unbridled sex and the most forbidden of fruits just eeking out of them like the exquisite nectar of some kind of visceral deity, and that, if consumed, would constitute such an unholy and sinful act of gustation that books would have been written about it and then transcribed and passed down generationally until the very last moment of the end of all time -- to serve as a warning to others. It was a very special machine. Anyway, I just wanted to use it on the bench in the garage to read auto repair manuals, browse some repair forums, and listen to music on Spotify. I couldn't get all of those things done acceptably at that time under any operating system. Like many so many other beautiful things that ultimately turn out to be impossible to cohabitate with, it turns out that I should have just left it there in that dumpster to begin with. And that was enough Macintosh for me. I'm over it. No idea what happened to it. With any luck, it got beaten, crushed, and set on fire before finally being buried forever in a landfill, whereafter it can never tempt anyone again.
  - ranger_danger 5mo ago
    Not all phones use/used RNDIS to tether its internet connection, some like mine use cdc-ether or cdc-acm, plus there is bluetooth tethering as well as just plain NAT'ing an ethernet adapter plugged into the phone. If you're in a desperate situation where RNDIS does get removed from the kernel but you still need it, I'm guessing there may either be out-of-tree modules you could build, or if all else fails, you could run a VM with an older kernel.

by ssl-3 5mo ago

stirfish 5mo ago

"Generations of spiders" threw me there, I thought you were talking about web crawlers.

userbinator 5mo ago

Drivers may be a fun thing to get working depending on the OS, but that's just a software problem Android USB tethering uses the RNDIS standard, which I believe goes back to the Windows 95 era, so there's certainly no shortage of driver support.

ssl-3 5mo ago
I think RNDIS started as a built-in with XP, and there's MSFT-supplied drivers (now hosted at archive.org) that cover the win9x era. Someone wrote about that here: https://thp.io/2023/rpizero-usb-win98.html https://thp.io/2023/rpizero-usb-win98.html . As connecting old stuff to new stuff goes, it actually looks pretty straight-forward. :) But I've heard rumblings that Linux is dropping/has dropped RNDIS from the kernel. That's unfortunate; it may be broken and ugly, but it's useful and I like useful things. (Those interested in the uber-security can just never install the kernel module, I'd like to think.) And I've never spent much quality time with a Mac[1]. I'm lead to believe that RNDIS is a third-party thing there. But, sure: It's all solvable. For getting an old PC online with parts already on-hand, it might even be worth solving. The amount of fun this entails just depends on the OS. :) [1]: I once had a stunningly-beautiful dumpster-score G4 iMac with an absolutely gorgeous 20" screen, the SuperDrive, and all the RAM. If it had any pores on its flawless exterior, then those pores would have had an effluence of unbridled sex and the most forbidden of fruits just eeking out of them like the exquisite nectar of some kind of visceral deity, and that, if consumed, would constitute such an unholy and sinful act of gustation that books would have been written about it and then transcribed and passed down generationally until the very last moment of the end of all time -- to serve as a warning to others. It was a very special machine. Anyway, I just wanted to use it on the bench in the garage to read auto repair manuals, browse some repair forums, and listen to music on Spotify. I couldn't get all of those things done acceptably at that time under any operating system. Like many so many other beautiful things that ultimately turn out to be impossible to cohabitate with, it turns out that I should have just left it there in that dumpster to begin with. And that was enough Macintosh for me. I'm over it. No idea what happened to it. With any luck, it got beaten, crushed, and set on fire before finally being buried forever in a landfill, whereafter it can never tempt anyone again.
- ranger_danger 5mo ago
  Not all phones use/used RNDIS to tether its internet connection, some like mine use cdc-ether or cdc-acm, plus there is bluetooth tethering as well as just plain NAT'ing an ethernet adapter plugged into the phone. If you're in a desperate situation where RNDIS does get removed from the kernel but you still need it, I'm guessing there may either be out-of-tree modules you could build, or if all else fails, you could run a VM with an older kernel.