[Dylan16807]

> I chuckled at 10G wired ethernet on a laptop. I mean in a docking station? Sure that seems reasonable. But fun none the less.

What difference does a docking station make? Sometimes you want to spend a minute or two setting up your laptop in a more serious way, and that's just as reasonable with or without a docking station.

[rcoder]

The "dock" comment made sense to me because I don't think that true "road warrior" laptop use and 10G Ethernet deployments would coincide all that often.

I've put a disproportionate number of hours and $$$ into my homelab over the years, and I still only have 2.5G Ethernet switches deployed. Most offices' (much less home/coworking space/etc.) network traffic is passing through single-gigabit switches.

[ChuckMcM]

This is where my head is on docks. When your connected to enhanced infrastructure (like your home lab) sure, but when you're checked into the Embassy Suites? Not particularly useful :-).

That said, I'm kind of sad that Framework and others have generally opted to let "third party USB-C docks" be the docking solution. I miss the days when my Thinkpad dropped onto its docking station with a purpose build bottom connector and seamlessly became a desktop/deskside type computer that was wired into my desk setup. Sadly I think that vision of docking died with the Thinkpad's sale to Lenovo.

[organsnyder]

I have a 5gbps symmetrical fiber connection at home, so I've spent a fair amount of time and money upgrading my homelab backbone to 10gbps. That includes a 10GBe connection to my desk, but I've had issues getting the connection to be reliable (terminating the shielded Cat6A I have in the walls is a pain). That drop hasn't been working for the past few months, so I've been on wifi instead; it hasn't been enough of an issue for me to invest the time in fixing it.

[michaelt]

With the rise of USB-C, docking-station-like devices are cheaper than ever before.

For $20 you can get something that will pass through power from a USB-C charger, 4k HDMI to a monitor, and provide gigabit ethernet and some USB ports. We're no longer in the bad old days of USB 2 where USB ethernet was noticeably slower - or of $$$ vendor-specific, laptop-specific docking stations.

And if you don't have a dedicated desk where you can set up your docking station, you're probably not going to enjoy the wired ethernet experience, because without a desk you'll have to crawl around to plug your ethernet cable into a floor port every time you move desks.

I still have a soft spot for laptops with built in ethernet ports, though, for connecting to devices in the field.

[koolala]

Reminds me of routers on the internet.