i recently switched from windows to linux and i know nothing of linux. i start it fine but when i click on a browser or irc client it just wont conect. my lan is up and working fine, my card is plugged in but for some reason it just wont connect ot my lan i guess. i really need some help.

Need more information:

What distro are you using?
How do you connect to the Internet i.e. dial-up, cable modem, adsl modem?
Do you use a router between your LAN and your dial-up/cable/adsl modem?
How many computers are on your LAN? --> Which computer is having the problems connecting?

Also, post the output of the following command (open a console terminal to run it):
/sbin/ifconfig

1. Do you use dhcp in your LAN?

2. Is your network interface found by the kernel; that is, does the command 'ifconfig -a' list a device like eth0 or similar ("lo" won't do.)?

3. Is the interface up and running? That is, there are words "UP" and "RUNNING" in the output of the ifconfig and it has a valid ip address.

1 && 2 && 3 ==> Should have a functional network set up.
1 && 2 && !3 ==> Run pump; that is, type "pump" as root to get yourself an ip address.
1 && !2 ==> Figure out what your network card is (lspci might help) and install a proper kernel module for it (modprobe helps with this). Now 2 should be true.

!1. Figure out what are your network configurations (ip address, hostname, netmask, broadcast address, etc.) and use ifconfig to set them up instead of pump.
If the manpage of ifconfig seems too messy, see the
Linux Networking HOWTO for help.