Raspberry Pi’s Paul Oberosler Makes USB Gadget Mode as Straightforward as Flicking a Change

Raspberry Pi’s Paul Oberosler has introduced a brand new bundle that provides an “easy way” allow Ethernet over USB in USB Gadget Mode on something from the Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ upwards — including the characteristic as a easy toggle in Raspberry Pi Imager 2.

“The idea [of Ethernet over USB] is beautifully simple — plug the Raspberry Pi into a laptop and it appears as a USB network adapter, just like when you enable USB tethering on a smartphone. At least, that’s the theory,” Oberosler writes. “In reality, getting this to work has traditionally involved a mix of outdated scripts, manual configuration steps, and platform-specific instructions that only reliably supported one host OS at a time — Windows, macOS, or Linux, but rarely all three.”

Oberosler’s resolution, now formally rolled-out and supporting Raspberry Pi OS “Trixie” photos from the model dated 20.10.2025 and onwards, is a straightforward toggle in Raspberry Pi Imager, the corporate’s in-house device for writing working system photos to storage units. Click the toggle within the “Customization” menu, set a hostname, and when the picture is written will probably be robotically configured for USB Gadget Mode.

The characteristic is supported on the full-size Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+, Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, and Raspberry Pi 5, the Raspberry Pi 500 and Raspberry Pi 500+ wedge computer systems, the Raspberry Pi Zero, Raspberry Pi Zero W, and Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W compact boards, and the Compute Module 5 when put in in an acceptable service board — with the Compute Module 4 “technically supported,” Oberosler notes, “but additional manual setup is required.” Oberosler additionally advises using a powered USB hub, as switching to USB Gadget Mode turns every board’s energy enter right into a data-and-power connection — and for power-hungry units just like the Raspberry Pi 5, Raspberry Pi 500, and Raspberry Pi 500+, a laptop computer’s USB port is unlikely to ship the present required for steady operation.

While that handles the configuration on the Raspberry Pi facet, web connection sharing — which permits the Raspberry Pi to make the most of the host machine’s community connection — requires host-side configuration. For this, Oberosler has penned guides for Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS, whereas advising these on Linux that “instructions vary depending on the desktop environment or init system.”

The full information, together with directions on enabling USB Gadget Mode in current Raspberry Pi OS “Trixie” installations, is offered on the Raspberry Pi blog.