Hi, i have had this acer aspire one for about a year now. I was running ubuntu, then updated to ubuntu 9.10. It was working fine, then all of a sudden the internet stopped working. Both wired and wireless. When i plug in an ethernet cable it loads for a while then says cannot connect. So i figured that there ws something messed up with my software, as i have had to play with this piece of garbage laptop many times. So i got a new iso for ubuntu and installed it. Still no success. I then tried Mint, no success. Now im running eeebuntu off a usb and no internet still. Ubuntu 9.10 is still installed, but eeebuntu is just running of a usb. I looked it up in google, but it seems all they seem to ask is if it can "ping". I tried this and it wouldnt ping. So i need some help, if anyone can. Btw, im not very good at computer stuff and new to linux. But i do know some things. I appreciate any help.

If you've reinstalled the OS and it's still not working then it's unlikely that your problem is software. It sounds to me more like a hardware problem.

so my hardware can just stop working out of nowhere like that? I tried switched form the ath5k driver to the Atheros madwifi driver and no success. So its hardware you think?

I'm no expert, it just seems that if it didn't work and then you loaded a new distribution and it still doesn't work then it's probably not software as a software issue should be sorted when you load the distro.

It's a long shot, but there's nothing in the BIOS options to enable/disable LAN or Wireless is there?

No, there's nothing in BIOS. Thanks a lot for your help though. I appreciate it.

Maybe you could try a different distribution to see if you get a different result, or even if you could get hold of a copy of windows just to see if that will recognise the hardware. If windows can't find it either then it'll be almost certain to be hardware.