Today, I felt like tinkering with a PI3B and a Tecknet USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet converter. I plugged it into the pie, switched the LAN cable from the LAN port to the adapter, and…nothing.
So I did a reboot. Still nothing. The pi shows up in my router, but cannot be accessed locally, nor does it show up in roon.
The adapter itself works. Am I missing something obvious?
Is there a way to get the USB-LAN-adapter to work?
This is completely dependent on which OS / Distribution you’re running on your Pi 3 which you didn’t mention.
Ropieee (surprising, in this category of the forum, isn‘t it?), stable, 661.
Sorry about that I didn’t look to see where I was in the community 
From the RoPieee home page “but you can also plug in an external USB Wifi adaptor (Realtek chipset only).”
and from what I can find online only some of the Tecknet adapters use Realtek. Do you know the exact model of your adapter?
You could also try loading DietPi. That would let you login and run “dmesg” which should tell you the exact chipset.
No problem, thanks for chiming in. 
So if I understand you right it depends on the chipset in the adapter, not on the connection type? (wired vs wireless)
Correct. Something in the black plastic “speaks ethernet” and that’s the critical chipset which needs driver support before the system recognizes it as “ethernet”.
Now, maybe we’re in luck here because some docs say this is Realtek but others say Intel. However, lots of “inexpensive” manufacturers will keep model numbers but change internal components. Also, there are different Realtek chips.
If you want to keep pursuing this… Boot DietPi (or see way down at bottom), login, and run…
$ dmesg |grep -i eth
This is the output for a Pi 4 onboard adapter.
[ 0.551687] bcmgenet fd580000.ethernet: GENET 5.0 EPHY: 0x0000
[ 4.851009] bcmgenet fd580000.ethernet: configuring instance for external RGMII (RX delay)
[ 4.851294] bcmgenet fd580000.ethernet eth0: Link is Down
[ 9.048269] bcmgenet fd580000.ethernet eth0: Link is Up - 1Gbps/Full - flow control off
You can also run:
$ lsusb
If you want to not boot DietPi you can plug into Mac or Windows and look at system info, usb bus, and see whats listed.
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Thanks a lot, I‘ll check tomorrow and post the results.
returns the following:
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:8153 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp. SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Standard Microsystems Corp. SMC9514 Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
So it looks to be a realtek chip. But probably an unsupported one.
I’m calling in the one individual who will know for sure. Pinging Mr. @spockfish
Can you please help out @Kopftelefon with his USB Ethernet now that we know what it is. Thank you.
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This will not work as RoPieee does not support external USB LAN adapters.
I see. Thanks for the clarification.
And, of course, happy holidays!
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