Why can't I create a Wi-Fi hotspot with Ubuntu 11.10

Question

I was able to create a wi-fi hotspot using connectify in windows but once I switched to Ubuntu I am no longer able to do the same. My Dell studio xps 1640 that runs Ubuntu asks me the password of the hotspot I just created using the System Setting -> Networking -> wireless -> create hotspot.

lshw -c network
WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.

*-network               

   description: Wireless interface
   product: BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n
   vendor: Broadcom Corporation
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
   logical name: wlan0
   version: 01
   serial: 0c:60:76:6f:7f:71
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=brcmsmac driverversion=3.0.0-30-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
   resources: irq:17 memory:f8000000-f8003fff

*-network

   description: Ethernet interface
   product: NetLink BCM5784M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe
   vendor: Broadcom Corporation
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
   logical name: eth0
   version: 10
   serial: 00:26:b9:11:50:db
   size: 1Gbit/s
   capacity: 1Gbit/s
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=tg3 driverversion=3.119 duplex=full firmware=sb v2.17 ip=83.172.121.99 latency=0 multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=1Gbit/s
   resources: irq:48 memory:fc000000-fc00ffff
WARNING: output may be incomplete or inaccurate, you should run this program as super-user.

The above is the configurations of my network cards. that is the result that I got when i typed the following command lshw -c network.

Answer 1

Your lshw output says that the brcmsmac driver is being used.

AP support is one of the TO-DO features for this driver, so this probably means that, unless some other driver (from Broadcom?) offers the AP feature under Linux, you likely can't create APs under Linux with your card.