In-flight and hotel WiFi can be quite expensive and often insist on charging
users extra to connect multiple devices. In order to avoid that, it’s
possible to easily create a WiFi hotspot using
NetworkManager and a
external USB WiFi
adapter.
Depending on the hardware you have, you may need to install the
firmware-ath9k-htc package.
The main trick is to right-click on the NetworkManager icon in the status
bar and select “Edit Connections…” (not “Create New WiFi Network…”
despite the promising name).
From there click the “+” button in the lower right then “WiFi” as the
Connection Type. I like to use Hotspot as the “Connection name”.
In the WiFi tab, set the following:
- SSID: machinename_nomap
- Mode: hotspot
- Device: (the device name of the USB WiFi adapter)
The _nomap suffix is there to opt out of the
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