Trying to get Tp-Link TL-SG105 working to network 2 computers

[Vic20]

I am new to Linux and networking is not my strong area at all, I am having problems trying to get Mint to recognize my switch. I am in system settings, plug in the switch, select wired, and it hangs for a while saying connecting, then: connection failed, activation of network connection failed error pops up. My windows laptop had zero issues with it, it's very much plug and play and they don't even have drivers, for they never found it necessary to have for people to download upon.

On this run, it's mainly to back up all of the files I have on my tired laptop onto this and removable media always has a way of losing files along the way, even though technically it's not supposed to, it's always been that great big black hole when it comes to backing up and transferring large file volumes from a windows computer, you always lose stuff along the way no matter how well you think you did it, so just getting them to network together I can simply pop into the windows computer with the stuff I need to re-transfer over as needed till it's all there, then let that trusty soldier retire on a shelf in my closet at best.

As stated, new to Linux, so just have lightly dabbled with the terminal, it's an alien language right now but I am sticking with Linux, in this case Mint being my favourite I've tried out so far. The community did well getting it out of the box usable for us noobs, that learning curve on the terminal is the hard part. I can toss the switch if it's just a pain too, it was cheap anyway.

The tower is an Emachines ET1161-0 cnet shows the specs: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/emachines- ... 07-review/ and honestly, they were harsh on it considering what this can do as a linux box if you do not overload the hardware resources. I've even pulled another hard drive from another emachine to have for storage upon it, so having 120 gig for that aspect helps too. I added a Dell/Amd video card to make this work, too for Mint to run as an os on the system. Any other specs you need, let me know.

Thanks in advance people.

[AZgl1800]

I have a TP-Link and IMO, it is a piece of junk.
I gave up on trying to make it work right.

I have found a much more stable WiFi to Lan to WiFi gadget called DoDoCool.

My only complaint with it, is that it does not support 5g WiFi....
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JB ... UTF8&psc=1

it comes with a little tiny instruction booklet, I ran that thru my scanner and converted it to PDF so that the pages could be blown up large enough to read the print.

if you get this thing, I will send you the PDF for it.

My old daily driver laptop's WiFi module took a dump, and I needed something "right now" to get it back in service. DoDoCool WiFi repeater to Lan did the trick for me.

It can be used as a repeater also, several modes of use.

With that, I can now surf the Win7 desktop which is where all of my files for 30 years are residing. they are also backed up to a 1TB drive there.

[Vic20]

Thanks, and I did exhaust the resources I could find online and their the TP-Link customer support to no avail. Taking your direction, it's just not worth the effort regardless. I ended up picking up a cheap used Linksys router wrt54gl, loved seeing that it is Linux based and it was very much plug and play outside of having to press the reset button to get it back to it's default username and password to gain access to configuring it further.

Now onto figuring out how to get these systems to share files as you are doing, any tips would be helpful. 30 years is a long time for any computer, much less a windows computer, I can't imagine what it's specs are and what you were running when you first got it.