Re: [BLUG] Xfinity, Ubuntu woes

Yeah, I'm aware. What's the acronym... mdi-x? Medium dependent interface?

Though it's pretty much a standard feature, I've also run across devices since that was implemented which either don't manage it properly or still just don't have it. Not everything (seems like it's usually the consumer stuff) uses the internal switching, so I still keep a couple x-overs I've made just in case.

I suggest a crossover cable in this case because it should work with one whether the device automatically switches the contacts on the port or not. Hunter's right though, there's no real reason not to try it with a regular old ethernet cable.

On Aug 13, 2014 5:06 PM, Kevin Hunter Kesling <hunteke@gmail.com> wrote:

At 2:47pm -0400 Wed, 13 Aug 2014, Ryan Lee Kiser wrote:
> I presume you can connect to one of the Ethernet ports with a
> crossover cable into a wireless router and just use it as a modem.

As a friendly FYI: 10+ years ago, the term crossover cable meant that
the ethernet cable in question had the relevant input and output wires
switched from a normal ethernet cable, so that the output of port A
talked to the input of port B and vice versa.

This was necessary/convenient if you wanted to have two machines
communicate and you did not have a hub or switch available (and a second
ethernet cable).

Since ~2005, however, no special crossover cable is needed as all (to my
knowledge, anyway) ethernet cards have built-in hardware logic to
auto-negotiate which wires are input and output upon connection.  So,
when he says "crossover cable", you can translate that in your mind to
just "cable".  (Unless of course you're working with hardware older than
2005!)

Cheers,

Kevin
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