This is so neat, but ...

Any chance we can make this work in something like virtualbox to run in windows as opposed to alternate boot?

Right now if start PirateBoxManager it fails becuase it doesn't see wlan0. Vbox tells the system it's connected via an ethernet port in the emulation. I tried a quick mod to change wlan0 to eth0 in the configure options, but then my network connection dropped. I'm guessing I need some kind LAN setting adjustments.

Even just a quick a pointer on what to change where via nano would be usefull.

I'm thinking as neat as a live boot is for an on the go setting, having something up and running for fun wth my housemates and neighboors that could run all the time in the backround would be sweet. Out here in the islands having a small mesh network could be very usefull during internet outages and what not.

I think what happens is that the device(wireless network card) gets disconnected from the host OS and acts like it's directly connected to the guest OS. A don't know enough about Virtualbox to suggest a fix but a possible workaround is to get an external wireless card and use that instead. That way, each OS would have its own network card and you can keep the connection while running the virtual machine.
I hope that helps. Good luck!

I know about KVM, not virtualbox, but the issue is llikely the same. Two choices: 1 set up a bridged interface with dnsmasq running on the laptop or 2, better, IMO, set up a bridged interface that expsoes the guest directly to the network. Instructions are here: http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Networking .

Another Bob