How To: Turn Your Linux Box Into a WiFi Hotspot

Make a Linux WiFi Hotspot

linux-wifi-hotspot‘ Which is a great tool, complete with GUI if wanted, written by lakinduakash. It has only been around for a few years, but it’s spoken of very highly and it just works and works well.

[code]sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lakinduakash/lwh[/code]

[code]sudo apt update[/code]

[code]sudo apt install linux-wifi-hotspot[/code]

If you want, you can visit the link above, click on releases, and download the .deb file for the current release and just install it with gdebi.

[code]yay -S linux-wifi-hotspot[/code]

To check this, you need to run the following command:

[code]iw list | grep AP[/code]

Anyhow, the output should contain one or both of the following lines:

Device supports AP scan.

And/Or:

Driver supports full state transitions for AP/GO clients.

How To: List USB Device Info From The Terminal (lsusb)

lsusb‘ command for this one. This article should be both quick and easy.

lshw‘, ‘lscpu‘, and ‘lspci‘. Seeing as we’ve got a good thing going, we’ll go ahead and cover ‘lsusb’ this time. Like the rest, the function becomes evident by the name, and the man page describes it as thus:

[code]lsusb[/code]

[code]lsusb -t[/code]

[code]lsusb[/code]

Take a look at the output. For example, you might see something like this:

[code]Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bda:8178 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8192CU 802.11n WLAN Adapter[/code]

So, using my example above, you end up with a command that looks like:

[code]lsusb -D /dev/bus/usb/001/005[/code]

How To: List PCI Information From The Terminal (lspci)

PCI devices are the ones in the add-on slots in your computer. They’re typically internal devices, though you can get USB powered external devices with PCI-e slots, they kind of defeat the purpose. For this article, we’ll be using lscpi.

[code]sudo apt install pciutils[/code]

The PCI ID Repository and may actually not be accurate. Yup. You could get inaccurate results from this command, but we throw it around daily as though it’s infallible. And now you know…

[code]lspci[/code]

[code]lspci -v[/code]

[code]lspci -t[/code]

However you can easily put the two of those together and simply get a great verbose tree output with:

[code]lspci -vt[/code]

NOTE: Older versions required -vvv for verbose and -tree were needed to perform those operations. The current versions simply use the -v and -t switches. 

How To: List CPU Information From The Terminal (lscpu)

lscpu‘ and it does what you’d expect – ‘list CPU information’. It is defined as thus in the manual:

[code]lscpu[/code]

[code]Architecture: x86_64[/code]

NOTE: Pretty much all modern computer hardware supports the 64 bit instruction set, but there are still some 32 bit machines out there and being used.

 




How To: List Hardware From The Terminal (lshw)

lshw‘. The manual helpfully defines it as:

[code]sudo lshw[/code]

[code]sudo lshw -C cpu[/code]

You may even be asked to use grep with it, such as:

[code]sudo lshw | grep wireless[/code]

[code]sudo lshw -short[/code]

[code]/1 wlxe4beed0e5f5c network Wireless interface[/code]

Now, if you want to refine it even further, why not try this:

[code]sudo lshw -short | grep network[/code]

[code]man lshw[/code]

or

[code]info lshw[/code]