turning my asus eee pc running ubuntu 9.04 jj into a wifi router.

Hey everyone, i just moved to philly and well left my netgear router back home since it sucked. Well today i finally got comcast to install internet and cable and the only way i can connect is via ethernet cable. I was thinking about hooking up my asus eee pc and making up an adhoc connection being able to connect my macbook and macbook pro,maybe my xbox 360 and nintendo wii and my ipod touch/iphone. If there is a way to make this adhoc connection will i be able to protect it with a wpa or wep encryption?

I plan on getting airport or airport extreme(don't really know the difference) in 2 weeks but it's going to be a pain waiting for each other to finish using the internet with only one ethernet cable. I have been tethering these past couple of weeks on my iphone with pdanet unlocked using t-mobiles edge network and it hasn't been fun. Any help would be great.