http://www.osnews.com/story/9836/Make_your_Arch_Linux_a_Bluetooth_Access_Point Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:37:02 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I got a bluetooth ad on my phone at the mall the other day... I bet they did some thing like this, except generated messages instead of allowing internet connections. BTW, I found out that it is important to not only set your phone to non-discoverable, but also change the default name. I thought the ad was it pretty cool at the time, I bet it will get old when it catchs on. Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'll admit to having been in the dark ages with Bluetooth, as I've never really had a use for it as I've got wireless so the internet sharing hasn't been necessary. But now that I've got a mobile, PDA and other devices I've needed to find some way of synchronising and using the lot of them and it's a bit of a pain to be honest. Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have a connection to the Internet with my IPaq 2210 after following the instructions. Sun, 27 Feb 2005 15:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sure, this is a solution, but it's not really the 'Linux way' of doing things.

There should be a way to enable connection sharing from the GNOME/KDE network manager panel.

Someone really needs to write a shareware app to set this up. I know I don't want to waste hours tinkering with scripts on the command line like this.

I know theres a market for a product like this, because I would pay $10 for it. Sun, 27 Feb 2005 19:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So this isn't the "Linux way", but using shareware products to access relatively basic features is? Are you kidding me? Sun, 27 Feb 2005 20:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No, i'm as serious as Eugenia when it comes to making silly statements about 'The *Insert OS Name here* Way'

It's just that the very method that was claimed as inadequate and overly time consuming on OS X is apparently a valid approach on a Linux distro.

I mean, they're both UNIX-like OSes with fancy graphical shells, so I don't see why a shareware app is required on OS X but no on Linux. Sun, 27 Feb 2005 20:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Is bluetooth a good alternative to wifi for home : sharing an internet connection and a printer between 2 or 3 PCs ?

Are bluetooth adapters well supported in linux ? Sun, 27 Feb 2005 21:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No, WiFi is better is terms of speed and software/ease of use and OS support.

However, Bluetooth has a few qualities that made the creation of this Access Point a necessity (I worked all night last night to make it work properly on my Fedora/Arch and then wrote the article at 3:30 AM, I went to sleep 5 AM). The qualities are:

1. If you have a PDA that only supports BT. Most Palm-based PDAs are BT-enabled, not WiFi-enabled.
2. If you want to share internet connection with someone else on a hotel room or in a library or on a coffee shop. If that someone else has a PDA or a BT dongle for his/her laptop, but not WiFi or other means to connect, you can help him/her to get some connection too.
3. If you have an old PC laptop and especially a Mac (especially older iBooks that were not upgradable to WiFi) that doesn't support any wireless in it, but it happened you got your hands to a BT dongle and you want to use that laptop as a wireless laptop.

Basically, BT-over-IP is good for the cases where there is no WiFi available or your client doesn't have WiFi or other connection means, and you want to share a single connection with him/her. Sun, 27 Feb 2005 21:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >I have a connection to the Internet with my IPaq 2210 after following the instructions.

Very glad to hear. Sun, 27 Feb 2005 22:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I would have just stayed with Windows 98SE, especially since virus and antispyware writers are tagetting Windows 2000/XP instead. Norton Corporate Edition is not a resource hog like its retail counter part, so that would have done well enough for virus protection, plus Spybot Search and destroy for Spyware and she would have been cool plus get a copy of Office 97 off ebay for $10 and she would have been super!

For browser, just put her on the latest version IE 6 for Windows 9x or FireFox, I think that would be just fine. Sun, 27 Feb 2005 22:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Anyone that knows how far an avereage BT-dongle will send/recieve? Can I st this up on my Linuc-server in my basement and expect it to work in my living room (ground floor/wood house)? Mon, 28 Feb 2005 10:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Nalle, please read the article, this very thing is explained on the second paragraph of the article! Why people never read the articles before commenting?

So, it depends what dongle you buy. There are Class I, II and III dongles: Class I is the furthest of all, up to 100 meters. Class II is 10 meters and Class I is 1 meter. So, it depends how much money you want to spend. Mon, 28 Feb 2005 10:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Eugenia: (especially older iBooks that were not upgradable to WiFi)

all ibooks have had support for WiFi, that was they're big selling point when they came out, remember? i think they might have even been the first laptops with built in WiFi. Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? > If you have an old PC laptop and especially a Mac

If you have USB, you can have wifi using a usb/wifi adapter.
Why do you think bluetooth is more suited in this case ? Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments