How can I connect my laptop to the internet?
 

Hi, I cannot believe my good fortune to be sat in front of my laptop which is now running Linux Mint very happily. For how long I have suffered with ms. I have installed a couple of Linux versions 7-10 years back,and did not get very far with them, am still a newbie when I look at some of the stuff in Linux, but am willing to learn and am totally converted.
Am running
Laptop HP Pavillion dv6000
Mint 2.6.31-14 Generic
Modem Huawei E220

I have downloaded 9 files from: source code, exe x2, makefile, txt,and 2 shell script files. The exe files give me the msg "could not display file name etc" There is no app installed for exe files
What dont I know and where can I find it.
Would it be easier to take the machine to an internet cafe and plug in a cable to get it online, atm my other machine is a eee pc windows 7 starter and it has some weird stuff going on, says it has over 10 viruses? Anyway cant wait to get this over to Linux too.
Thanks
Jon

Hello,

the exe files? are these .exe files, if so those are windows executable files and will not work within linux. Wine can run some windows applications within linux but this is heavily ill-advised for drivers. Have you read the txt file? it might give you better instructions on how to install the driver for linux and are you sure these are the correct drivers for linux? The makefile is likely what you will need but there should be a readme.txt which will have all the instruction.

I believe Mint is Debian-based, so probably you'll want to use Debian-based package manager (apt-get, synaptic, or aptitude) for installing new software. Mint should have repositories where you can download software that is already compiled for your distribution. When just starting out, this is a more reliable way of adding or updating packages rather trying to compile from a .tar file or something similar.

I'm sure the Mint website has documentation on how to install and update software.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I am fairly sure the point here is to install the network drivers, what would make a package manager entirely useless, as it would require said drivers to connect to the Internet in the first place.

@ OP:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei_E220:
I think it's already supported, you probably only don't know how to use it - look here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Di...to/Huawei/E220 (Mint is based on Ubuntu, it probably applies)
* maybe it is needed: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/99

Welcome to Linux Mint
How do you connect to the internet?
However you connect you just use the Synaptic Package Manager Search for the software you want install it, If you are using dial-up yes you can take it somewere plug in a cable to download Checkout and join the Linux Mint Forums

What was the solution?