Thanks in advance for any and all assistance:

My windows xp rig died. Pulled this box out of mothballs and rapidly learned how much one can forget in ten years.

After two days of cussing and being cussed at (wife) I've gotten it talking to the router and her computer. however I cannot access the internet.

We utilize a linksys/cisco router connected to an HN9000 satellite modem.

I am a bit more competent than standard helpdesk script, I have truly forgotten nearly everything that I ever knew about linux.
I am certain I am missing something relatively simple. But if I don't free up her rig soon, I am liable to hear much more cussing.

do you have dhcp running on the interface your using to connect to the router ?

No. I set a static on the router using the MAC. I set the static in ifconfig

Hi...

Welcome to the forum

Just FYI, although an excellent version (I used it exclusively for three years,) Ubuntu 10.04 is no longer supported by Canonical and it wouldn't surprise me if they haven't already shut down the repositories (for this version.) This means you will not have any access (or easy access) to any applications (programs) or security updates! I would highly advise installing a current version of either Lubuntu or Xubuntu, if this an older system and you want to stay with the 'buntu line.

Regards...

1 members found this post helpful.

ardvark, thank you for the suggestion. 15.10 is on my do list(and saved for installation, once my brain recovers from the improper dry storage). Just need to get this thing running long enough to bone up on all the required procedures, without having to do it from my wife's rig. (she truly despises my being on it)

xubuntu.
and always use LTS (not sure if 16.04 is out yet, might want to wait a few days).

Normally with DHCP/networkmanager the DNS information is automatically configured but not when using a static IP address. You need to manually add a DNS nameserver to your /etc/resolv.conf file. Try:

nameserver 8.8.8.8

1 members found this post helpful.

many moons ago I used SCO-Unix on a daily basis. back then this was all a piece of cake. Now, however I have been codified by microshaft.
I can access ect/resolv.conf from the gui in gedit. It shows to be read only and will not allow me to save an altered version.
From the root dir; I don't remember how to change permissions or how exactly to edit the file.
As you suspected no DNS is in the file. Further network-manager does not appear to be installed. Without inet access not sure how to correct this.
From the gui system/preferences/connection I had included the DNS: 67.142.182.10, 67.142.182.11 though they do not appear in etc/resolv.conf

I really do appreciate all of the help. Thank you all for your time and patience.

You need to use sudo:

sudo gedit /etc/resolv.conf

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks Michael. That did allow me to edit the file. No change to connectivity.

I ran netstat -r. The address of my modem is showing up, as is the subnet mask. the gateway addr is not though.

If I try to ping the modem it fails. If I ping this rig or the router it does so nicely.

regarding gateway addr; router states the gateway is 192.168.0.2 this unit states that the default gateway is the router addr. this would imply that the gateway I should be using on the 10.04 rig should be that of the router. is this correct?

Yes, the gateway should be the router's LAN address.

If it is just a DNS problem you should be able to ping google.com using its IP address vs URL i.e.
173.194.200.101

Is the MODEM also a router?

I don't think that the modem has any routing capability and it only has one lan connection and no wifi.

pinging google failed.

changing the gateway in the system/preferences/network connections wired1 ip4 (GUI)changed nothing either. Is there a file where the gateway can be edited?

Since you are nice enough to walk me through all of this; what is the command to restart the network?

I'm feeling pretty dumb about now. You wouldn't know that once upon a time I administered a NWN persistent world on a linux server.

The /etc/network/interfaces
Here is an example

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 10.0.0.100
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 10.0.0.1

sudo ifdown eth0
sudo ifup eth0

1 members found this post helpful.

noticed something peculiar. On startup ifconfig only reports lo and wlan. have to ifconfig eth0 {addr} to get it to report eth0 stats.

managed to "lose" this computer. got it back again, but I'm not certain what I changed to cause it.

I think in general that the computer is fixin' to make a funny sound (never heard what one sounds like when it is thrown through a window).

Michael, again, thanks for all of your help.

Odd. Could you open a terminal and post the entire results of these commands...

Perhaps there might be some information there that might give us a clue as to what's going on.

How so? What happened exactly?

Now, let's not be hasty...

Do you know where this is coming from in the computer and what it sounds like?

Regards...