Share Your Wireless Connection in Ubuntu

The past week I have been having internet problems at home. These problems appeared after I moved my computer and desk further away from the wireless router. Its pretty far away now and the connection must go through several rooms. Im not entirely sure what step to take with my computer since I like the new location. I may get a wireless signal repeater or booster, maybe upgrade the wi-fi card to a newer model, or even get a hard line connection snaked in when I have the time.

Last night I was not happy with my wireless connection dropping out. I needed to get things done. My laptop sits next to my desktop and did not have the drop out problems. I figured there must be a way to link my desktop with my laptop and use the laptops wi-fi connection since that was a stable wireless connection. Simply said, I wanted to share my wireless connection in Ubuntu. This is super easy to do and here is how:

Right click your network connection on the computer that will be sharing the wireless and then click "Edit Connections"...

Its simple so far isnt it? :) Now that you are in your network connections, you want to adjust the wired connection settings. In most cases its called "Auto eth0". So highlight it and then click the "Edit" button on the right of the menu.

Once in the Auto eth0 settings, click the IPv4 tab, and on the "method" pull down menu make the change from the default "Automatic (DHCP)" to "Shared to other computers". After it has been selected, go down and click Apply and you should be done.

The settings have been changed, but you are not done yet. Now connect a CAT5 cable between your two computers. For me my laptop had the w-ifi so I connected it to my desktop which had no wi-fi. The computer with the wi-fi that you just made these changes on needs to be rebooted and everything should work!

So bottom line... there is no need to make changes to the computer that has no internet that you want to share with. Its the computer WITH the wireless connection you need to make the changes. Good luck and have fun! I'll be using this for the next week or so until I have a more permanent fix for my desktop internet connection.

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