NO internet connection with anything
 

Hello, I am BRAND new to this whole LINUX thing and trying to figure things out. I just did a fresh instal of Mint Debian edition, says kernel Linux 3.2.0-2-486(i686) on an old Dell lattitude D600. everything seems like it worked fine but for the life of me, I can not figure out how to get an internet connection either wirelessly OR through mu modem which is from comcast. Im not sure what kind of info anyone would need to help me out but let me know and I will try and find it. Keep in mind.... I really have NO idea what the heck I'm doing....

Hey there sabertash! Welcome to the forum en (more importantly) Linux!
It's the first step in a long and exciting path. And you've taken the right step already: the choice of YOUR flavour of Linux. Mint is cool, it's (what is called) Debian-based, read: super documented and stable. You're in for a cool ride :)

Okay, now, on to your internet. Some questions and some homework.
Pretty much everything can be done from the console, try to locate it, it has an icon like a black little square.
Once open, we'll test if networking is a fact, enter this:

...what you just entered was a command for the PC to send some network traffic to PC 127.0.0.1, that number is an IP address, and this one in internationally recognised as ... yourself. By doing this, your PC has to send AND receive stuff... If you get responses, networking is a fact. Woohoo!!!

What's the modem like? What make? Is it a separate box with a lead to the (nearest) PC? That info might be useful, as that modem could have some more connections for you to use, and we'll just hook up the laptop to the modem and configure that.

A network cable is what you'll need (we'll delve into wireless later, let's get a picture first) and then some more commands to type, ready?
(maybe a cut-n-paste, why not, saves you some typing)
(I used the older ifconfig, though ip link is the newer way to do this, but I don't know the config over there)

next, the gateway

where I assumed the modem to have the IP address 192.168.1.1

Let's see where this eagle lands!!

Welcome again

Thor

Thank you!
 

Ok, first off thank you for the reply! Here we go! When I pinged myself I DID recive packets (I dont know how to make it STOP!) so thats a good thing. I looked the IP adress for my modem on my PC via ipconfig and got 192.168.56.1. I tried useing that AND the 192.168.1.10 you suggested and got:
siocsifadder: No device
eth0: error while getting interface flags: No such device
brodcast: Unknown host
ifconfig: '--help' gives usage ingormation

I went ahead and tried
route add default gw 192.168.1.1 AND 192.168.56.1 and for both got:
SIOCADDRT: No such process.

The modem I am using, is from comcast and it is a sientific atlanta brand. I know I have a good connection because thats what I am using to be on here. I am unpluging my ethernet cable from the PC and plugging it into the laptop. I suppose it could be a hardware/driver problem with the laptop. I just bought it with no operating system because I wanted to use it to learn LINUX... I guess its working!

Taking in consideration you are new to GNU/Linux here some tips(by the way welcome to LQ and to the light side).:
In the terminal when you do the ping command on linux by default it doesn't stop until you hit control+c, to know more about ping command type in the terminal man ping, that will bring the manual for ping, same works for any other programs that have the manual installed, also check out the manual pages for: ls, cp, mv, mkdir, that is a good start with the terminal, to navigate in the manual use arrow up and down and to end the manual session press q.

If you could post the results for ifconfig command here that would be great to help you out. use the bbcode code to post the output, yu'll get something like this:
That can tell us a lot about what is going on with your network settings.

Regards

To stop ping, press Ctrl-c.

You shouldn't have to fiddle with addresses in the command line: Mint will have a network configuration tool in the menu somewhere and you can set the computer to use dhcp.

A quick search for "scientific atlanta linux" shows no serious problems reported anywhere. I don't know anything about cable internet connections, but I presume Comcast do! Have you tried their help line?

I just KNEW I was going to have to type out all that ifconfig info! Lets try this!
[code]
eth1 Link encap: Ethernet HWadder 00:11:22:33:44:55
inet6 addr: fe80::211:22ff:fe33:4455/64 Scope:Link
UP BRODCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:258 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:18 errors:0 dropped: 0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:16797 (16.4 KiB) TX bytes:4366 (4.2 Kib)
interupt:11

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:754 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:754 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:62088(60.6 KiB) TX bytes:62088 (60.6 KiB)
[code]

Whew! there we go. Hope that means somthing to someone!
and David, I have not tried comcasts help line because the connection seems fine (it works for windows based PC) I just cant get my laptop which is running LINUX to connect.

Thank you for your help!

your ethernet adapter isnt getting an ip address for some reason (and it doesnt list your wirelesee adapter). please give us the results of these commands for some extra diagnostic info:

Well you don't really need to type it all, if you do:
You will have the output in a file named ifconfig.txt then with a usb flash drive you can copy the file to the other computer!
Do the same for what schneidz asked, that will make things easier.
By the way the last code needs the slash to close the command and to generate the box, like this [/code]

Regards

ukiuki, I thought about trying somthing like that but its not THAT much typing... Well I managed to get a wired connection by hooking up another line to my wireless router instead of hooking up straight to the modem.. Ok, whatever. Still unable to get a wirelss connection however. under wireless networks it says : device not ready (firmware missing). Here is the result of the code schneidz wanted me to enter (I saved it on the laptop to my desktop via the network tab,COOL!)

thank you all so much for your help! This is all pretty cool so far!

FYI for future reference typically your home cable service only provides one DHCP IP address which is controlled by the MAC address of the ethernet adapter. So if you move the MODEM cable between your computers or router you will need to the reset MODEM's power.

Post the complete output of the lspci command. Your laptop could have several different model of wireless adapters. Yours might have a b43 device.

Ok michaelk, here you go.
Thanks for the help!

This should help get you going.
sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

if i remember correctly every time you unplug an old pc from the ethernet port of a cable internet transceiver and plug in a new pc, you have to unplug/ replug the power so that the mac address info is updated. (for cable receivers that have a battery backup --so the phone still worx in a blackout-- you will have to call the isp so that they can send a signal to bounce your internet transceiver.

also, for some reason, not all the commands printed out any information... not sure why (e.g.- lspci / iwconfig info is missing ?)

edit: i think i know why: i see capital-V's in your lspci command instead of lowercase-v's... did you copy-and-paste ?

i dont use debian but i think michaelk's response is likely to help. for the shiggles can you please post the outputs of these commands:

michaelk: That did it! All up and running now, thank you so much!
schnedz: Here is the code with everything working
AND

any advise on improving performance or anything else LINUX would be great!
Thank you everyone who has helped out!

Here's a good tutorial http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz for the cmd line.
A few more useful links
http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-G...tml/index.html
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
http://linux.die.net/man/

thanks again! I will check them out when it's not three a.m! Oi!