Networks using laptop as an access point?

Hey all. My friend has a laptop with a wireless card, and a wireless router. He was asking me if you can use a laptop to access the internet through the laptop and its wireless card. is there any way you could connect the PC to the laptop so only the laptop would need to connect to the wireless network, while allowing the pc to access the internet through the laptop (arghh, i know its confusing). Or would it be easier to but a usb or pci wireless card for the desktop.

 

Yes it is possible.

Just make sure you allow the laptops internet connection to be shared via its ethernet.

 

A few more details required... What's the OS? Does the desktop have any kind of network connection? If it has a wired ethernet port (most fairly modern PCs do), and the laptop does too, then you can connect them together using a crossover cable so they have their very own little network and share the connection as mentioned above. Any other method just gets more complicated (and probably more expensive) than just getting a USB/PCI Wifi card. Or, of course, running a cable from the PC to wherever the router is. Let me know if you want more help on the crossover thing.

Another thought: An expensive but sometimes useful option is Powerline Ethernet, might be worth looking at.

 

he's running ubuntu 8.10 on the desktop, windows xp on the laptop, desktop is fairly recent so it has the inbuilt 10/100 connection. the Ethernet over power type adapters are expensive over here in NZ like $100 each!

so all that is needed is im guessing is a crossover cable? or would it be easier just buying another network adapter?