If wireless is your only connection... why?

[aysiu]

I've seen some threads where people who are trying to set up wireless have difficulty doing so because they have only the wireless connection, so if that's not working... they have no connection.

I'm just wondering why this is.

Our household has wireless, but if my wife's laptop's wireless acts up, we can always take her laptop over to the router and plug it in and used a wired connection.

You people who have wireless as your only connection, what your main reason for having only one connection?

[~LoKe]

Most people get wireless so they don't have to worry about routing a cable through the house. It would have made my life much easier if I had wireless (but I like a challenge).

[steveneddy]

Maybe some of them don't realize that they have a wired connection.

I have wondered the same thing lately.

[rosegarden78]

It's good to always have a blue cable in the 4th slot of your router just in case you upgrade or install, especially with hardware such as Broadcom wifi card that wasn't meant for Linux, for which you need to download fw-cutter to store off-line. Check Ubuntu or your distro to make sure hardware is fully compatible with Linux before making new laptop purchase. The Dell 1420 comes pre-installed but the Inspiron 1200 with Broadcom card works just as well for me.

[aysiu]

Maybe some of them don't realize that they have a wired connection.

I have wondered the same thing lately.

Well, that's what I've wondered, too, which is why I created this poll.

I've seen a lot of threads that say something like this:

I'm trying to set up wireless in Ubuntu, but all the tutorials want me to install packages downloaded from the internet, but I can't download them, because I don't have the internet since my wireless doesn't work--duh!

and my first thought is--Plug in your computer with a wired connection for now to get the packages. Once you have everything working, then you can use a wireless connection. Why don't you have a wired connection you can use temporarily?

[Lord Illidan]

What I also have is a wireless bridge. The whole house is wireless, however this nifty device can give me an Ethernet connection. However, I prefer wifi for obvious reasons.

[argie]

Our home is a rented apartment in an apartment block. The connection wires come out from one point in the house, you can't get the broadband cables out from elsewhere, there simply is no way. We have a wireless router because the desktop my parents and brother use is far from the router and we didn't want wiring all over the house. It makes life easier for me and my laptop too.

When there's trouble I just take the laptop over and connect it and fix what needs to be done. If we didn't have this laptop that would not be possible.

[x0as]

Router is too far away, I'd have to run a cable from the back of the house to the front, up the stairs & then to the back of the house. I'm basically above the router but running the cable through the wall or ceiling isn't an option.

[Zylar]

Most residential isp's (in my area at least) provide a modem/wireless-router combo and a 'do-it-yourself' free install (with fold-out instructions/poster). These modem/routers have the ssid and wep key printed right on the side on a sticker. So all these people do is plug the router into the phone/cable jack, and put the wireless info from the sticker into their connection settings. No more experience or network knowledge needed. As far as they're concerned, the rj-45 jack is as arcane as the usb-b port these same routers have.

What we need to do in the future is give these people a mini networking tutorial, or maybe have one in the wiki we can link to.

My $.02

[Gigamo]

My main pc, which is upstairs, uses a wired connection. However, I'm mostly on my laptop (which is my only linux box, so here's your why ), and on my laptop I usually sit downstairs. So on my laptop I'm almost wireless only, unless if I break something, I can go upstairs and plug in the cable and search for a solution.