Hi All

Going away soon and where are are going will only allow us 1 wifi connection. I need to have this on a laptop but wondered if there was a way to connect our iphones when we need to via the laptop wifi somehow.

Not sure if this is possible when the laptop is using wifi or not? Currently have mint installed but happy to replace if I can get this working

Any advise would be great

Thanks

Glenn

Both tethering and wifi wireless connection to your mobile phone should be straight forward. There are many ways to get it working, but the easiest one is to install NetworkManager. It is actually an applet, available in most distros, and should run on any window manager. If you are going to use tethering, connection should be as easy as plugging the usb cable (your laptop will see it as a normal cable internet connection, and NetworkManager should connect automatically.) If you are going to use wifi, all you need to do is to configure your wifi connection in the NetworkManager (it's pretty easy, basically you have to give the password you've set on the phone.)

I had issues to get wifi or tethering working on my phone though. Depending on the phone, it might not be set to work out-of-the-box. If I were you, I would install NetworkManager before going to need the phone connection, and give it a try now. That's because you might need to search on the Internet how to set up your phone for this. Actually, it's more likely you will have issues making the phone working for that, than having issues with the Linux laptop itself.

I have network manager installed but still can't see on the laptop how to share the wifi.

I did see a youtube video for Mint 14 that had a button saying use as hotspot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyJpFKdzH30) but mine does not show this button and have to say network connection screen compared to this seems different

Thanks

Glenn

This is clearly a mobile phone issue. If the mobile is not set correctly, NetworkManager won't "see" the wifi and won't list it in the possible connections. I had a similar problem on my Samsung mobile ("Use as hotspot" and "Use tethering" were not there as an option.) You will need to first enable "Network connections" - or whatever it is called on your mobile. Even then, it might not work. In my case, I also needed to call the provider to make the phone work as a hotspot. Unfortunately, I can't give more help on the subject, as it has nothing to do with your laptop itself; it is a mobile issue, and possible solutions differ depending on the specific model.

As far as I know you can not configure a wireless adapter for both connecting to an access point and sharing at the same time. In addition not all wireless adapters can be configured for being an access point.

You could use a standalone wireless access point connected to your laptop's ethernet port to share the internet. As mentioned you can use the iPhone's capability to create a hotspot assuming where you are going has 3G capability and you have a data plan etc.

that is not true. in the MS world its called ICS (internet connection sharing), if i remember correctly, and in OSx its just share connection. matters not if wired/wireless in both OSs.

from my Android phone I set up tethering almost every day as I prefer my phones connection/speed over my college "guest" limited connection. In fact im tethered right now.

There should be some way in Linux to share out the wifi connection even if it is connected via an AP. sadly in Fedora it would seem that if i try to turn my laptop into a "hotspot" i will loose my connection. that is rather irritating that Linux is unable to perform something so simple that both MS and Apple are easily capable of performing.

Nothing in my post is about ICS or using a phone as a hotspot/tether. The OP only mentioned using wifi. Not enough information provided to know if 3G is available much less if they have data plans etc.

My understanding of what the OP wanted was to configure the laptop as a wireless repeater so that they could connect with more then one wireless device. And as you stated it does not work. Other hardware like repeaters/extenders might work since some actually create a secondary access point but may not be compatible with hardware at the destination.