Ethernet through the dock?

[Diagon]

Forgive me if this has been asked, but I'm surprised to find that search on this forum is coming up with nothing.  

After an update of Mobian, I am finding ethernet only works when power is not applied to the dock. You can't charge and use ethernet at the same time. This is not one of these fancy new power supplies. It's only 5V/2.1A. Anyone have a work-around?

Oh, and I'm on 1.2b (Manjaro edition), booting off of SDcard.

Edit: When I say "the dock" I'm referring to the Convergence Dock, that comes with the PinePhone.

[dukla2000]

I have a no-name dongle from fleabay that is pretty similar in ports to the official dock. I thought mine would only run if it was powered and have never tried it unpowered!

Make sure you have the latest ANX firmware, but as you are running from SDcard I would first try a Mobian card: my browsing of these forums indicates not everything that works on 1 image is working on all the others. It may be a Manjaro issue (and this is the Mobian sub-forum so I would say that ;-) )

[Diagon]

I have a no-name dongle from fleabay that is pretty similar in ports to the official dock. I thought mine would only run if it was powered and have never tried it unpowered!

Make sure you have the latest ANX firmware, but as you are running from SDcard I would first try a Mobian card: my browsing of these forums indicates not everything that works on 1 image is working on all the others. It may be a Manjaro issue (and this is the Mobian sub-forum so I would say that ;-) )

You have a link for that dock?

I'm running Mobian, so I'm not sure how it could be a Manjaro issue.  Are you aware that the different board revisions are labeled by the OS they are shipped with?

I have since found that the convergence dock, that comes with the phone (if you order it) is also not working on Ubuntu Touch, with identical issues - works if not powered, does not work if powered.  So this seems it may be a Debian issue.

[a-wai]

FYI, I've been running a PP (BH w/ USB-C HW mods) as an "Ethernet to 4G" gateway using the CE dock for a whole week, powered with a no-name USB-C charger (which came with a refurbished google pixel 3 IIRC), with no problem at all.

I also tested with a dumb 5V/3A just fine.

[Diagon]

FYI, I've been running a PP (BH w/ USB-C HW mods) as an "Ethernet to 4G" gateway using the CE dock for a whole week, powered with a no-name USB-C charger (which came with a refurbished google pixel 3 IIRC), with no problem at all.

I also tested with a dumb 5V/3A just fine.

Thanks, a-wai, but I do see that people are having various experiences with various docks - at least with the PinePad, so I would assume with the Phone.  I have also had different experience with Arch/Manjaro, where the Convergence Dock does work when powered.

I edited my OP to make it clear that when I speak of "the dock," I mean the Convergence Dock that comes with the PinePhone. And this is a Debian thread, so I'm talking about Mobian.

[dukla2000]

I have a no-name dongle from fleabay that is pretty similar in ports to the official dock. I thought mine would only run if it was powered and have never tried it unpowered!

Make sure you have the latest ANX firmware, but as you are running from SDcard I would first try a Mobian card: my browsing of these forums indicates not everything that works on 1 image is working on all the others. It may be a Manjaro issue (and this is the Mobian sub-forum so I would say that ;-) )

You have a link for that dock?
...

Bought it Jan 2020 so actual link no longer available. A search for "5 in 1 USB Type C Hub Hdmi 4K USB C Hub To Gigabit Ethernet Rj45 Lan" brings up lots of the same thing from about GBP10 upwards - I paid GBP14.

...
I'm running Mobian, so I'm not sure how it could be a Manjaro issue.  Are you aware that the different board revisions are labeled by the OS they are shipped with?
...

 My bad - I saw the Manjaro CE version and skipped the bit you wrote about Mobian!

Yup on board revisions I have a v1.1, v1.2a and a v1.2b!

The only (perhaps) useful thing to add is sometimes the driver timeouts/retries can take 5 minutes or so before my phone settles providing ethernet connection and charging. Can be lots of clicks at first with various attempts.

[Zebulon Walton]

I have a no-name dongle from fleabay that is pretty similar in ports to the official dock. I thought mine would only run if it was powered and have never tried it unpowered!

Is it this...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-in-1-USB-3-0-...4211141163

Looks interesting, it would be nice to have gigabit ethernet. Does Mobian have all the drivers needed for this to work? Also, it's my understanding that the USB-C port on the Pinephone exposes a USB 2 host. Do the USB 3 ports on the ebay dock work, but at USB 2 speed? (Presumably the gigabit ethernet would also connect at USB 2 speed. Still much faster than 100Mbit ethernet.)

[dukla2000]

I have a no-name dongle from fleabay that is pretty similar in ports to the official dock. I thought mine would only run if it was powered and have never tried it unpowered!

Is it this...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-in-1-USB-3-0-...4211141163

Looks interesting, it would be nice to have gigabit ethernet. Does Mobian have all the drivers needed for this to work? Also, it's my understanding that the USB-C port on the Pinephone exposes a USB 2 host. Do the USB 3 ports on the ebay dock work, but at USB 2 speed? (Presumably the gigabit ethernet would also connect at USB 2 speed. Still much faster than 100Mbit ethernet.)

Yes, looks like that. I have no idea what is inside and/or how many varieties of them there may be with different innards. I have no USB 3 devices to get any feel for what is behind the sockets, nor have I plugged in any HDMI. My purchase plan was for the RJ45 which works great. I can play a bit more tomorrow night to try fill in some of the gaps though.

[dukla2000]

...

Looks interesting, it would be nice to have gigabit ethernet. Does Mobian have all the drivers needed for this to work? Also, it's my understanding that the USB-C port on the Pinephone exposes a USB 2 host. Do the USB 3 ports on the ebay dock work, but at USB 2 speed? (Presumably the gigabit ethernet would also connect at USB 2 speed. Still much faster than 100Mbit ethernet.)

Actually I guess I should admit upfront here I am out of my depth on the specifics! All I know is my RJ45 works

When plugging the dongle into my phone the log gets:

Code:

[ 1820.624829] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci-platform
[ 1820.788250] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=05e3, idProduct=0610, bcdDevice= 6.54
[ 1820.796511] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 1820.803720] usb 1-1: Product: USB2.1 Hub
[ 1820.807721] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: GenesysLogic
[ 1820.813957] hub 1-1:1.0: USB hub found
[ 1820.819254] hub 1-1:1.0: 4 ports detected
[ 1821.136814] usb 1-1.4: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-platform
[ 1821.278635] usb 1-1.4: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8153, bcdDevice=30.00
[ 1821.287256] usb 1-1.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=6
[ 1821.294655] usb 1-1.4: Product: USB 10/100/1000 LAN
[ 1821.299596] usb 1-1.4: Manufacturer: Realtek
[ 1821.303923] usb 1-1.4: SerialNumber: 000001
[ 1821.416450] usbcore: registered new interface driver r8152
[ 1821.427771] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
[ 1821.528966] usb 1-1.4: reset high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-platform
[ 1821.678981] r8152 1-1.4:1.0: Direct firmware load for rtl_nic/rtl8153a-4.fw failed with error -2
[ 1821.687952] r8152 1-1.4:1.0: unable to load firmware patch rtl_nic/rtl8153a-4.fw (-2)
[ 1821.732671] r8152 1-1.4:1.0 eth0: v1.11.11
[ 1821.866858] r8152 1-1.4:1.0 enx00e04c6802b3: renamed from eth0
[ 1827.712729] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): enx00e04c6802b3: link becomes ready
[ 1827.721392] r8152 1-1.4:1.0 enx00e04c6802b3: carrier on

and

Code:

mobian@duklapp:~$ lsusb
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 2c7c:0125 Quectel Wireless Solutions Co., Ltd. EC25 LTE modem
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bda:8153 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 05e3:0610 Genesys Logic, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

And while the firmware load problem may be a problem (I have setup/configured nothing to get the dongle to work except to share the IPv4) the actual throughput is not Gigabit IMHO - this is from my phone to my RockPro64. My knowledge runs out way before I can even suggest where the bottleneck may be.

ps - discovered my RockPro64 is initialising a 100Mbps eth0 so up front I have no idea my phone and dongle actual ability.

Code:

mobian@duklapp:~$ iperf3 -i 10 -t 60 -c 10.42.0.44 -p 8000
Connecting to host 10.42.0.44, port 8000
[  5] local 10.42.0.1 port 37234 connected to 10.42.0.44 port 8000
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   113 MBytes  94.7 Mbits/sec    0    157 KBytes      
[  5]  10.00-20.00  sec   112 MBytes  94.4 Mbits/sec    0    235 KBytes      
[  5]  20.00-30.00  sec   112 MBytes  94.4 Mbits/sec    0    346 KBytes      
[  5]  30.00-40.00  sec   113 MBytes  94.6 Mbits/sec    0    346 KBytes      
[  5]  40.00-50.00  sec   112 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    346 KBytes      
[  5]  50.00-60.00  sec   112 MBytes  94.1 Mbits/sec    0    346 KBytes      
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-60.00  sec   675 MBytes  94.3 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-60.01  sec   673 MBytes  94.1 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

[Diagon]

I have a no-name dongle from fleabay that is pretty similar in ports to the official dock. I thought mine would only run if it was powered and have never tried it unpowered!

Is it this...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-in-1-USB-3-0-...4211141163

[...]

Thanks, Zebulon.  I've ordered one from Amazon (sorry) that is claimed to be working on the PineBook 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B5WBML3

https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinebook_Pro_Hardware_Accessory_Compatibility

Now I appreciate the input on docks, but since the Convergence dock works with power on Manjaro, I was really hoping for a software solution.  It should *at least* work on Arch, right?  The failure there is a mystery.  But perhaps there's also a way to get it to work on Debian & relatives.