I have both windows and linux (SuSe) installed on my laptop (for about a year now), but suddenly for now reason I can't get on the net from linux, while under windows my internet connection is working fine. When linux was loading it said that it can't find the IP address, but I'm clueless to what I should do, and I need to fix this desparately asap.
I greatly appreciate any help that anyone can give me about this.
Thanks.

well if you can connect to the internet with windows you know that it's only linux that's giving you a problem.

First. Is this something you experience using only one program or nothing at all will connect to the internet.

What i mean is do your IM, web and every other internet service not work, or just web.

Second. If it's just your web browser, do you need to add proxy settings for it to work properly. and try all your browsers, konqueror, firefox and everything else to make sure that it's not just one that you've misconfigured.

I don't use IM, but non of my browsers are working.
Also, I didn't try to configure anything. I worked under linux this morning, used the internet and it was fine. Then I switched to Windows, used internet there and it was fine, and then tonight, when I switched back to linux it just wasn't working, and that's why I'm so mystified.
The last internet-related thing that I installed was few days ago, and it was a Last.fm player for online radio, but everything worked fine after that untill tonight (also, needless to say that that player doesn't work now either).

Check that your networking is operational. From a console or the command line do ifconfig . It should list lo and eth0. If just lo is the only connection listed then try ifup. If the network is working and you still cannot connect then you need to check your networking configuration.

I did /sbin/ifconfig and it does list both eth0 and lo and it wrote some stuff (do I look for something specific there?). But, how do I check my networking configuration, and what am I looking for??

This depends on how your network is setup. You are either using static addressing whereby your card has a specific ip address ( like 192.168.0.2) and is on the same subnet as the modem/router you are using or it is using dhcp. If it is using dhcp then it needs to pick up an address from the router (lease). The way in which the network is configured varies between distros. I would suggest that you update your profile and enter the distribution you are using so that it makes it easier for us to help you. I would suggest going into /var/log/syslog or dmesg and have a look at what happened when the network connections were initiated and then come back with the info if you cannot resolve the problem.

I'm using SuSe and dhcp on the network. I couldn't find var/log/syslog or dmsg, but I did look into var/log/boot.msg and when it started initializing eth0 it just said (among other things) "no IP adress yet....backgrounding.done" . Is that what you mean or do I need to lookup something else?

There must be a /var/log/syslog or dmesg as this is standard on 'nix systems. You need to look for a message that eth0 has picked up a lease. You can also manually bring the network down with a the console command ifdown eth0 and then bring it back up with ifup eth0. Check whether eth0 has been allocated an address using ifconfig. It should give an ip address for eth0 on the same subnet as the router eg if the router uses 192.168.0.1 then it should have an address like 192.168.0.X. Also use the command route -n and it should give details of the network and gateways.

I really don't see anything called syslog or dmesg in /var/log.
I tried ifdown eth0 and then ifup eth0 but i got a message
>Starting DHCP Client Deamon on eth0.........no IP address yet...backgrounding.

I did ifconfig but I don't think it assigned IP address since I don't see anything even close to
to the IP addresses on my other computers on the same router.

When I do route -n it just says:
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface

and don't know what to do with that?

Ok that sounds like the router is not issuing a lease. I suggest you try resetting the router.

I guess that's all it needed - a router restart. It works now.
Thanks everyone.

I must apologize, I am very new to linux...I am now running Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper). After quite a bit of work, I got ndiswrapper up and running, however, I can only access certain sites (such as the mozilla home page and the ubuntu help pages). I installed opera in hope of solving this problem, but to no avail. If I try to go to google, or yahoo, or most other sites, the browser just says "connecting to yadda yadda" and hangs. Is this a common problem? Can anyone help me? I am at wits end

I have a Dell 1350 WLAN PCI card, if that helps...my home network has no router, just a wireless modem using dhcp.

From what you have said before I am guessing the connection is via a modem/router (ie there is a router incorporated with the modem to which you connect ethernet). What you describe seems to indicate that you are not resolving DNS addresses. As root edit your /etc/resolv.conf and add;

nameserver <your_router_ip_address> eg 192.168.1.1
nameserver <primary_DNS_server_ip_address> #supplied by your isp
nameserver <secondary_DNS_server_ip_address> #supplied by your isp

Then do as root /etc/init.d/networking restart

Tip: Linux has an auto-complete function on the command line so you can type /et and use tab to complete the that directory and so on.

Thanks, TigerOS...I tried doing what you said, and it allowed me to access some more servers, but not all of my frequently used ones. In desperation, I tried some free proxies and, low and behold, it worked. Problem solved, and firefox runs great. Now I have another problem...video and audio codecs: I have tried all sorts of UI's and command lines, but no success. Can anyone help me??

Consult the Ubuntu Guide for basic Ubuntu configuration tasks.. it should be able to help you with most of those items..

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Dapper#H...timedia_Codecs