Windows to RasPi Internet Connection Sharing

One of the cons of Raspberry Pi is that it comes without a built-in wifi card. If you do not have a wifi dongle that works with Raspberry Pi out of the box, what your are left with is to connect it through a ethernet cable (or compile yourself a driver for your non-compatible wifi dongle, as discussed here). However, for my case, my internet router is located far away from my Raspberry Pi. So the next best thing I can do is to hook it to a laptop using an ethernet cable, and use a shared internet connection.

Here's how to turn it on in Windows 7 and above.

Going Wireless on Raspbmc with MT7601

$35 for a PC, that's Raspberry Pi. You can hook it to a monitor, speakers, USB peripherals as well as the Internet; there are pretty lots of ways you can use it for. I am using it for a menial task though - as a HTPC in my living room.

Raspberry Pi Model B

Raspberry Pi runs on Linux, which is a scary OS for the majority of computer users (including me) who are unfamiliar with it. For me, the biggest challenge was installing the driver for my USB wi-fi dongle, which is not supported by Raspbian out-of-the-box. It took me a weekend of googling and hours of trial and error to finally get it working. (There were numerous times when I almost threw the dongle out of the window because of frustration.) Therefore, I am writing this post for my future reference. Perhaps it might also benefit any other readers are having trouble setting up their wi-fi dongle.