Ok, I'm very new to Linux. I dual boot this pc with 2 different hard drives, one with Fedora Core 4 and one with Windows XP. Basically, I have a wireless and a wired NIC card on the computer, they both work perfectly on Windows XP. However, the reason I haven't fully converted to Linux is because my internet will not work! I know it's pretty hard to get wireless internet working on linux, but wired? What in the hell am I doing wrong?

I've read almost every tutorial and post on this forum about a problem that might in some way relate to mine, and I've taken very good notes on paper. When I try them myself, nothing seems to work. Now, I see many people that make posts and the next poster asks for their ifconfig and kernel information. Well, I'd rather we go on simple terms and try to guess what might be wrong. Basically, I'm running Fedora Core 4, and my ifconfig gives me 2 different connections, eth0 and lo. Now, I've tryed using the terminal commands such as ifconfig eth0 up, dhclient eth0, dmesg | grep eth0, ifdown eth0, ifup eth0, and service network restart. None of them do anything at all to help me. I've also went through my network settings and visually triple checked everything. Auto optain DNS stuff, etc. It is a wired NIC connection to a wireless bridge to my wireless router, so my computer is actually using a wire but it doesn't go straight to the router, instead there is a wireless bridge that picks up the signal. I don't know if that is the problem, but I seriously doubt it would be.

So basically, the card is good because it works on XP, the hardware status is ok in linux, the eth0 connection is found correctly, but when I open up Mozilla, it cannot find any website. There is no connection! WHY DAMNIT?! WHY!

If you could please run off of this information and try to jot down some things that I could possibly try, please, anything would help. I would appreciate it so much.

What is your gateway device set as in your network settings? It should be the IP of the first device your system is hooked to, which from what you've described is the wired router.

I didn't see a gateway device option...

Welcome to LQ.org!

Pigs from space are sending transmissions that interfere with your connection, cover the computer in tin foil.

Seriously, there are many good reasons why when someone posts a problem like yours we all ask for the information you aren't willing to submit. We are also a community of people who did not break your computer and have no real obligation to help you other than charity, so taking your frustration out here only motivates the community here to not want to help you.

You wanted someone to guess what was wrong based on no information (Would you do that to a doctor? "I need surgery, guess what's wrong and go in and fix it for me because I'm not telling you my symptoms.") and I gave you an answer. If you want a more informed answer, you may want to provide more information.

I'd rather not be flamed when nicely asking for help. Now I don't know if you took my orginal post offensive, but personally I saw nothing but new guy asking for some tips. I know for a fact that you and everyone else here can go off of memory and give me things to try given that I'm running a basic Fedora Core 4 pc on a NIC card with a wireless bridge. Remember, I'm dual booting. It's too much trouble to write all that stuff down when a nice guy can simply post some tips that he has known to work in the past. Thanks.

I wouldn't exactly call it asking nicely for help, even if you did tack on a please at the end. Either way, I'm not sure what anyone can do without any idea what's happening.

Anyhow, all debate on the tone of your post aside, I'll restate that if you want a more informed answer, you may want to provide more information.

-== Mod Edit ==-
Darin.. If you've got a bee under your bonnet, please leave it out of the forums.. regardless of how justified you believe you are in "helping" the issue.. move onto the next thread please..
peter_robb

I'm not quite sure how you find what I said not nice. I seriously don't. I wasn't saying anything hateful or vulgure to anyone on these forums. You must misunderstand me. Move on with life.

From here on out, please only post on this topic if your information will help me with my network connection issue. Thanks.

Bump, Any ideas?

This is disturbing - I asked the poster a question about his/her setup, and someone else slams them because they didn't think the post was informative enough. This thread only reaffirms to me why this board is useless for getting any information - there are so many bad answers by rude people, it's a wonder more new GNU/Linux users don't gravitate back to windoze after coming here.

I have been a GNU/Linux user for 8 years and enjoy helping people. In that 8 years, fewer than five people have rudely asked me for help. I think that's pretty good. This original poster was definately not rude, and certainly did not deserved to be treated in this manner. Are there no moderators here?

Thanks Sargek, I'll boot to linux when I get home from my classes this afternoon and look for the gateway device setting again.

Start by trying to ping outward..
Ping 127.0.0.1
ping eth0's ip address
ping the wireless router's ip address
ping an internet ip number
ping an internet url, eg www.google.com

See where it fails then work out what's missing..

Hi,

I really don't think this forum is rude! Personalities exist, even here!

When a LQ user requests help from an open forum it is the OP's responsibility to provide information on their system. Plus provide related information to the problem, be it syslogs, dmesg or basic std error information. My crystal ball was cracked a long time ago.

A lot of people assume to much about areas of concern. In order to assist with a problem you need as much information as possible to diagnose said problem. Yes, there are general troubleshooting techniques to break down or narrow the scope of the problem but it can be confusing to a noob.

Most people should provide general information, such as hardware, distribution and even a simple scope of the problem along with error information.

A lot of noobs' seem to get themselves into trouble by hap hazard changes to their OS without reversing the changes. That's why I recommend that every admin should maintain a written syslog for the system. Any changes should be noted within said log along with commented changes within any configuration .conf files or script file changes. Sometimes if you modify source then that too should have corresponding notation within the syslog and source.

These should be time stamped thus allowing a means of tracking.
Thus allowing the user to reverse or revert to a previous setup.

To the OP of this thread. We are volunteering our assistance to this forum and you will get more help if you tone down a bit.
I'm not asking for you to kiss anything nor to be subservient, just try presenting your request in a softer tone.

I didn't mean to get so winded!

My frustration has nothing to do with how someone on this forum should react, whether they think it was offensive of not. Anyhow, as soon as I boot to Linux(I hate booting to it since I can't do anything), I'll get the info. Like I said, I will look for the gateway device setting(which I don't know where to find) and I'll get my ifconfig and kernel info. If any of you need anything else, please post now because it will be a few hours before I boot to Linux. Thanks.

Perhaps I came off as a bit angry, and I didn't mean to, but it bothers me when someone asks for help and other posters attack them because perhaps they did not phrase their post correctly, or they did not provide as much information as possible. I see a tremendous amount of people posting here that get good answers, but equally as many that get rude answers, or answers that are totally incomplete, like "man ls", for example. Perhaps that is because this board has a huge membership, and the statistical probability of this happening is higher than other, smaller boards.

New users do need to provide as much information as possible, but frequently, they don't know enough to provide enough information, if that makes sense.

N1NJ4z - dual booting will have nothing to do with your problem, just to ease your mind. The gateway setting is basically what it says: your systems "gateway" to the Internet. In order for your system to find it's way out to the Internet, it must go through your router first, which serves as your gateway. If you are using DHCP to obtain an IP address, the gateway address (IP address of your router) may be entered automatically for you - I can't say because I've never used Fedora. You may very well have to enter it manually though. Look in your "network settings" or some menu option like that.