Fast method to connect a hard wired device to a wireless network when WIFI adapters aren’t working.

I’ve owned a Linux computer for the past 2 years and have LOVED it!

There are however aspects of Ubuntu that are surprisingly difficult to get working.. like setting up a WIFI connection 🤯

In this post, I’ll explain how I managed to get my Ubuntu computer set up on a WIFI network.

Intro

Having tried various different WIFI adapters and installing multiple drivers, I haven’t been able to get any of them to actually work and have instead just relied on a wired Ethernet connection for internet access!!

If you’re reading this post, you’re probably the same as me — just wanting an ‘easy win’ way to get your computer connected to a wireless network!

I have found a super easy fix to help get my Linux computer access to WIFI that I wanted to share, so others struggling with this can make use of what I’ve found.

Quick Caveat: this is NOT my ideal solution and as with most technical problems there are multiple ways to fix it, but this method works —  FAST .

Enough talk, lets get into it!!

WIFI to Ethernet Adaptor

I used the BrosTrend WiFi Bridge, that essentially converts the wireless connection into a wired one.

This means that you can use an Ethernet cable to connect your computer to the WiFi Bridge in order to receive the internet connection.

This is how it works:

1. You plug the Wireless Bridge into a wall socket and it creates a temporary wireless hot spot
2. Use your mobile device to connect to the wireless hot spot and follow the instructions to set it to the network you’re looking to connect a wired device to
3. The Wifi Bridge will now act as an extension of your chosen network, you can now use an Ethernet cable to connect your device to the wireless bridge to get an internet connection!!

Diagram showing how the Wireless Bridge can be used to connect a hard wired device to a wireless network (you can also connect the WiFi Bridge to a network switch if you have multiple hard wired devices to connect)

Conclusion

In this blog post, I’ve shown you an alternative and easy-win method for enabling your hard wired devices to get connected to a wireless network via the use of a WiFi Bridge.

I need to make an admission in my last closing comments of this post…

After making the effort to write a blog post about a work around for setting up WIFI on ubuntu, I embarrassingly was able to actually get it working.

Buy this BrosTrend wifi adapter, then follow the steps mentioned in their manual. It might require a bit of fiddling (a few restarts and updates etc), but it should work for you in the end.

If you go through all those steps and still are not able to get it working, then at least the content in this blog post will be useful for you 😉

In the meantime, hope this was helpful and have fun 😄