Here's the story: My sister has an older PC she wants some basic functionality out of (internet capability, essentially). She doesn't have any of the original install/reformat discs and piracy isn't an option, so I suggested ubuntu. I'm an utter novice with all *nix, but it seemed like a good place to learn/start. I downloaded and installed ubuntu 10.04 without much problem.

The problem: The wired ethernet cable connection doesn't work. I've tested the same ethernet cable with my laptop, and it does work (so we know that the router and the ethernet cable are both good.) I've been told that the machine did have internet connectivity before, and the lights on the nic card light up when the ethernet cable is plugged in.

The only thing I'm seeing in the ubuntu help manual is something along the lines of "if you plug it in, it should work, if it doesn't your router probably doesn't have DHCP enabled (and mine does).
Help??

here's the results of ifconfig eth0:

andy@basement-pc:~$ ifconfig eth0
eth0
Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:11:a7:5f:3a
inet6 addr: fe80::211:11ff:fea7:5f3a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:180 errors:1369 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:1369
TX packets:39 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:11746 (11.7 KB) TX bytes:11754 (11.7 KB)

my router is a linksys WRT54G. some quick googling suggests that it doesn't support IPv6, which I've confirmed at http://test-ipv6.com/ using my laptop.

is there someway to force use of IPv4? could that solve my problem?

thanks!

NotSpartacus,

try typing: sudo dhclient [enter the root password]

this will cause the network card to go into DHCP mode and try to obtain an IP address from the router.

1 members found this post helpful.

tried it, got this. I'm guessing this wasn't successful...

andy@basement-pc:~$ sudo dhclient
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.3
Copyright 2004-2009 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/

Listening on LPF/eth0/00:11:11:a7:5f:3a
Sending on LPF/eth0/00:11:11:a7:5f:3a
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 10
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 16
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 2
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
andy@basement-pc:~$

...just to be sure, can you do an ifconfig eth0 up and then do the dhclient command again. If that fails, can you try assigning a static IP address, net mask, and gateway to the NIC and see if you can access the network that way.

1 members found this post helpful.

no luck doing ifconfig eth0 and sudo dhclient back to back.

I'll work on the static ip / net mask / gateway, but I've never done that before so... it might be a bit before I report back.

no problem... this should help..edit the file /etc/network/interfaces

sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces [password]

under Auto Eth0...add the following information filling in the network information that matches your routers DHCP server setup

iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.x.xx
gateway 192.168.x.xx
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.x.0
broadcast 192.168.x.255

[ESC] :wq!

/etc/init.d/networking restart

OK...

after seeing your post and making my response I googled some guide and ended using using the gui to set it up.

after following it, the wired connection would establish (progress!), but when I open a browser and navigate somewhere it hangs for a long time and eventually displays the standard "Server not found" etc page.

After trying that I rechecked the thread and saw your response, so I tried it. It didn't improve things. A few notes on that- the interfaces file didn't have any Auto Eth0 section, so I added it. I had to sudo the /etc/init.d./networking restart command, and after I did that it said SIOCDELRT: No such process.

Thoughts?

okay... if you used the guide and are familiar with the GUI, a few more things to check...

I would go back and take out the manual edits to /etc/networking/interfaces and use the GUI to set the static IP.

When you right click on the network icon in the panel (step 1), is 'Enable Networking' Checked?

When you get into the GUI configuration (step 2), are the two boxes checked 'Connect Automatically' and 'Available to all users'?

Please post the output of lspci | grep -i ethernet

Please post the output of ifconfig -a

If you connect your working laptop to this network, what IP address does the DHCP router assign to it?

1 members found this post helpful.

enable networking, connect automatically, and available to all users are all checked.

andy@basement-pc:~$ lspci | grep -i ethernet
01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet Controller (rev 82)

andy@basement-pc:~$ ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:11:a7:5f:3a
inet addr:192.168.1.50 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::211:11ff:fea7:5f3a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:17 errors:107 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:107
TX packets:251 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1153 (1.1 KB) TX bytes:22818 (22.8 KB)

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:91 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:91 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:7301 (7.3 KB) TX bytes:7301 (7.3 KB)

andy@basement-pc:~$

using the same wired connection plugged into my laptop, the router assigns me 192.168.1.108

edit: I noticed something that doesn't feel right. the green and orange light on my NIC card... they're still lit even when the ethernet cable is unplugged. the green is solid and the orange flashes intermittently.

I would swap out the NIC...just to test it... oddly enough, according to the ifconfig -a, the NIC obtained an IP address.

let me know what you find out...