It has been several years since I have used Linux, so for all intents and purposes seem to be back to being a newbie.

I'm trying to install Fedora 20 on a laptop. The installation seemed to go ok, but when I use Firefox it gets a "server not found" error if I try and access a website such as nytimes.com.

I can execute "ping google.com" successfully.

My guess is that it is not finding the dns server, but not sure how to go about fixing the problem. Any suggestions will be welcomed.

Is this getting its IP via DHCP? If so typically the DHCP client will also get the DNS servers specified by the DHCP server.

If you can "ping google.com" it is presumably getting something from DNS unless you have that in your local /etc/hosts file.

If you do "dig google.com" and "dig nytimes.com" what responses do you get? What if you do just "host google.com" or "host nytimes.com"?

If the above are all resolving addresses properly your issue isn't DNS but something else.

Have you tried "www.nytimes.com" intead of just nytimes.com in the browser? Do you have any plugins for Firefox such as AdBlockPlus or NoScript installed for this install of Firefox?

Do you have an special port you put in the URL when going to nytimes.com in browser? (e.g. something like https://nytimes.com:47325?) Have you verified you don't have issues with outbound connections to that port?

Are you inside a company that has a proxy server or other web filtering system (e.g. WebSense) between you and the internet. Many companies block news sites by default on the theory that it is not "business" related.

Don't know how to tell if getting IP via DCHP or not. Whatever the default was on the installation. Been quite a few years since I have fooled with Linux (last time was about Fedora 13) and things seem to have changed drastically -- not sure how to access the network configuration,.

Both dig and host show the two IP address for nytimes.com.

www.nytimes.com gives the same error as just nytimes.com

No special ports.

Not in a company. Just going from the laptop to a router (wireless access) and then to a DSL modem.

OK, with a little help from the internet figured out how to see the network info.

IPv4 ON
ADDRESSES: automatic (DCHP)

DNS: automatic (ON)
ROUTES: automatic (on)

Nothing shows for server under DNS

OK, if it's not picking up a DNS server automatically, then populate the DNS field with the public Google DNS server, 8.8.8.8.

Most of the time, RHEL and Fedora seem to set up default networking profiles that don't include the checkbox/option to enable the connection at boot time. Make sure your adapter is actually enabled.

Otherwise open a terminal and type ip addr show, and give us the output.