Connecting through my laptop

ok heres the deal, i want to set up gentoo on my desktop comp [before you all think this is a linux question read on ] the probem is that my athereos [i think thats how you spell it] chipset card isnt supported by default and theres no way for me to install the madwifi stuff before i begin [at least not a way thats within reach of my technical expertese].

what i was wondering would it be possible to connect my desktop to my laptop and use its wireless connection. ive tried thw windows 'bridge connections' thing already but i guess i went about it the wrong way because both the connections seemed to die once it was finished.

if i could just get this working then it should simply be a matter of connecting to in the same way as i would to a normal ethernet connectio from the install cd [im guessing] but i cant seem to share the connection in order to get started

 

Firstly do both systems have wireless network cards? Otherwise you could get a crossover network cable and directly connect that way (the Ethernet Cable for internet will not work in this case you will need a "CrossOver" cable).

 

yeah, both systems have wireless cards, i think i realise what im doing wrong. got myself a crossover cable and hopefully this will solve my problems, cheers

 

ok one crossover cable later and im afraid im no better off than i was before, can someone point me in the direction of a good step by step guide for shareing a wireless connection through an ethernet connection.

everything i do either only appears to work [i seem to be able to ping on one direction and not the other :S ] or it closes my wireless connection.

i know there has to be a way of doing this, but im racking my brain trying to figure it out.

 

Well after currently going through the establishment of a LAN via a router myself on 3 diff systems with 2 x XP and 1 x ME OS's (all with different languages just to increase the level of difficulty) the very first port of call I have finally realised (many, many hours later!) is to go to the "Device Manager" on both systems (mine was the easy one) and ensure that the Ethernet Card has no yellow exclamations or red crosses and is "Enabled". If you have wireless there should still be the other NIC onboard (or card) for the cables so check their on as such firstly.

 

thanks for the replys here, but i guess im not being clear enough with what im trying to do i want to set up a connection like this;

Desktop PC ----[ethernet connection]---->laptop----[laptop wireless]---->router---->internet

*edit* the laptop->router->internet already works

*edit2* yeah bold eagle i already tried that everything seems to be enabled, when i hook up the cables the desktop PC seems to accept the connection ok, but the laptop keeps giving the 'limited or no connection' popup baloon

 

yup tried the network setup wizzard from both comps, it didnt help. i still get the limited or no connectivity from the laptop.

heres what IPconfig gives for both computers when they are connected together;

Desktop:
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Autoconfiguration IP Address......:169.254.172.64
Subnet Mask............................:255.255.255
Default Gateway.......................:

Laptop:
Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection 4:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix .:
IP Address.............................:192.168.0.5
Subnet Mask..........................:255.255.255.0
Default Gateway.....................:192.168.0.1

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Autoconfiguration IP Address......:169.254.46.188
Subnet Mask............................:255.255.255
Default Gateway.......................:

i think the reason the automatic connection shareing is failing is because windows seems to be attempting to assign the IP address 192.168.0.1 to the laptop to allow connection shareing, this ip address is however already being used by my router and im not sure if i can [or would want to] change it.

i think im getting more and more confused :S

 

um... it wont let me set the the same IP 192.168.0.5 for both connections on the laptop, all i get is a message box telling me that the IP i set on the cable connection is already in use on the network

 

i seem to be able to either connect the laptop to the pc via cable or the laptop to wireless, not both.

sorry for the double post, i seem to be missing the edit button

 

nope tried that too its no good, as soon as i enable the computer -> laptop connection it completely disregards the wireless connection, i cant ping the router access the web interface etc. but i can access the shared resorces of the desktop PC.

when i try to enable the internet connection shareing checkbox in the advanced tab of the wireless connection, it complains that the IP address required for automatic addressing is already being used on the LAN , im guessing it refers to 192.168.0.1 which is currently being used by the router, but even if i change this to something else i still get the same error.

 

You may want to give this a try.
Basically, the set up in your laptop will be a router. When you configure two network cards in a device, tables are built that allow the two interfaces to “talk” to each other. Set up the wireless network in the laptop for sharing and after it “complains” about the addresses being already used, manually configure the adapter with your previous settings as static.
IP Address.............................:192.168.0.5
Subnet Mask..........................:255.255.255.0
Default Gateway.....................:192.168.0.1

Now configure the Ethernet connection on the desktop with something similar to this:
IP Address.............................:10.0.0.5
Subnet Mask..........................:255.255.255.0
Default Gateway.....................:10.0.0.6
DNS……………………............:192.168.0.1

Configure the Ethernet connection on the laptop with something similar to this:
IP Address.............................:10.0.0.6
Subnet Mask..........................:255.255.255.0
Default Gateway.....................:192.168.0.1
DNS…………………….........……:192.168.0.1

You will need to test things out one little step at a time. First from the desktop make sure you can PING all of your local addresses 10.0.0.6, 192.168.0.5, 192.168.0.1, your cable modem or router IP address and finally some known system on the Internet. When all of this works, then go to the next step.

Run nslookup from the desktop system and make sure it finds a DNS server. Then enter www.complete-cs.com and make sure it returns an IP address. Once all of this checks out……you are ready to bring up IE and surf the net. Good luck.

 

ok heres where im upto, i followed jconstan's instructions, it seemed to go ok, no complaints fromt he computer however;

i can ping between the desktop and the laptop, and between the laptop and the router but i cant ping the router from the desktop, the packets seem to be getting to the laptop and stoping.

 

Where does the PING first fail.

You can PING 10.0.0.6 OK?
Can you PING 192.168.0.5?

If you cant PING 192.168.0.5 then there is something wrong in the laptop configuration.

Can you ping everything from the laptop?

 

yeah sorry im not being clear again,

i can ping everything from the laptop, but i can only ping the laptop from the desktop.
with that config;
from desktop;
ping 10.0.0.6 ok
ping 192.168.0.1 fails

from laptop;
ping 10.0.0.5 ok
ping 192.168.0.1 ok

 

Can you PING 192.168.0.5 from the desktop?

If you can then our path to the wireless side of the laptop is good. It will also tell us that the function inside of the laptop "knows" how to get to and return from the 192.168.0.0 network.

 

Re: Connecting through my laptop [Solved(ish)]

i couldent actually get this to work in the end, but it dosnt matter coz the latest Knoppix release had the drivers i needed for my wireless card.

thanks to everyone who tried to help though.