Ok guys I was doing some work on this issue and I'm getting somewhere. So far I'm able to make an ad-hoc in Ubuntu 8.04. Running into a couple of things such as actually making the laptop connect to the ad hoc network. My iPhone detects the network I made in Ubuntu but before I can connect to it I have to find a way to make the laptop connect first. That's the major problem now.
Heres instruction for some of you guys in case you want to try it:
Step 1: Go to the Terminal(Applications->Accessories->Terminal) and type the following.
Step 2 : If you are planning to setup a wireless adhoc network then you first need to know which interface of yours is wireless.For this in the terminal type iwconfig and the interface which does NOT say "No wireless extensions" is the interface you need to you.Otherwise just choose your wired interface.In this example let it be eth1
Step 3 : Now you need to stop network manager and bring eth1 down by typing sudo /etc/dbus-1/event.d/25NetworkManager stop and sudo ifconfig eth1 down
Step 4 : Now you need to setup eth1 to adhoc mode for this type sudo iwconfig eth1 mode ad-hoc
Step 5 : Now enter in the channel you want to use.for example 6.for this type sudo iwconfig eth1 channel 6
Step 6 : Now enter in the name of the adhoc wifi network you want to create/join by typing sudo iwconfig eth1 essid 'anynameyouwish with the quotes!'
Step 7 : Its always better you secure your adhoc network with a password(in this case 12345) therefore you can create one by typing sudo iwconfig eth1 key 12345
Step 8 : Now bring back eth1 by typing sudo ifconfig eth1 up
Step 9 : (I don't think this step is necessary but you can try it)And give it an ip address(for example 192.168.0.1) by typing sudo ifconfig eth1 192.168.0.1
Here's some screenies:
After you follow those instructions type in
iwconfig in the terminal to verify that you created an ad-hoc. You should see this:
If all goes well when you pull up your list of available networks you should see the adhoc you created in the list, mines being gq, here's a screenie
Ok I'll work some more on this tomorrow and post more screenshots, promise to keep the post up to date and consistant now that I have some time to mess around with this. Feel free to post any suggestions.