cant connect to wifi, sony vaio PCG 61A11L
 

this is my last resort, i've tried the traditional iwconfig wlan0 blah blah plus I've gone through the built in support guide and every google page that resembled my problem.
Here goes, I bought a brand new lappy, installed ubuntu 11.10, my wireless refuses to work, my wireless radio switch is on, when I go into the settings (the icon on the top toolbar), wireless networks and wireless is disabled are greyed out, enable networking is checked and not greyed out also enable wireless is not greyed out but it wont let me select it, when I go to edit connections and do everything manual nothing happens.
normally when I see people post about this their enable wireless is greyed out, mine is not.
Also when I go into the network settings its in airplane mode ALL THE TIME. I disable it and when I try to enable wireless from that page it turns on for a second then drops again and returns to airplane mode.
I am about to throw this thing into my fireplace, please help!!!
P.S. I love you guys and I'm a guy but I swear if someone figures this one out I'll find a way to have your baby.....

If you cannot edit the connections you probably do not have "permission" to do so. Try logging in as "root"

I presume that your sony came with windows ? did (does) wireless work under windows ?

Yes my sony came with windows 7, I dual boot and my wireless connection continues to work when I use windows, I have no clue how to log in as root, I've sudo'd, I've "su'd" Ive even typed in "root" I have no idea what my root password is though, THATS HOW GREEN I AM. Just to give you an idea, but it seems like most of the problems and fixes for this sort of thing were for ubuntu 9. something, I've tried them all, I've tried gnome-network-blah-something, I've scoured forum after forum with the same answer but all those other people had wireless greyed out so I'm not sure this is the same problem. This laptop is about a week old, I have an acer thats dying that runs nothing but ubuntu, now i'm just rambling.

Try this.

Open a terminal : Alt f2
in the input box type : xterm, then enter. A terminal window will pop up.

type into terminal : "sudo passwd root"

it will ask you for your password for YOUR account, authenticate you, and then ask for a new password for root. By default users can't access root.

Once that is done, try rebooting, but at the login screen instead of your username, enter "root" and your new root password.

From there, you should have access to the wireless configuration.

Your rambling makes me laugh..... I feel the same way at times.

Check this out: I really appreciate all of your help, I just cant believe I'm having this much trouble with my new expensive laptop when my 5 year old 300 dollar lappy works 20 times better, sadly, the screen is going out on my old one though. My authentication password obviously isn't it. aaaahhhhhh

this process can be a little confusing at first.

when it says "sudo password for terry" it is not asking you for the new password for root - it is trying to figure out if terry has permission to change the root password. So just enter in the same password you use to login to Ubuntu.

so it could look like this:

sudo passwd for Terry:
you enter: "same old daily password"

it will then prompt you for a new Unix password for root:

Enter new UNIX password:yada yada
Retype new UNIX password: yada yada
password updated successfully.

oh I know, thats what I'm saying, my login password is whats getting kicked back as incorrect, I don't know what it else it could be, I used the same one I always have and its telling me its wrong.....I'll try it again, i'll try logging in and out and see whats up. This is really weird.

Well, on the bright side : the problem has been identified which is 90% of the solution.

The other 10% could be here ( second section "Change the keyring password")

https://help.ubuntu.com/11.04/ubuntu...epassword.html

Keyring password huh, I guess I'm about to find out what that is, dude <I'm so sorry, Its a habit, I'm 31 yaers old and I'm trying to break the "dude" habit but its a southern california thing, we say dude like they say "hella" in northern california. anyways, I changed my login password and every time I would type it in it would kick back saying: "sudo, password, command not found" but when I would type in ANYTHING ELSE it would just say incorrect password, I'm clicking on your link now, thank you for holding my hand and walking me through this, and for being the only person to come to my rescue, quick question for you though, are you an android guy as well? I am a die hard android fanboy- or man, and I'm starting to prefer Linux to windows, if only I could get wireless to work.... anyways, sorry for the novel, clicking link now. Thank you ceyx

ok, I changed the login and keyring password to the same thing and it keeps telling me command not found when I enter the password, if I enter anything else it lets me keep trying, at the password login screen though where it says password there is 5 dots when I change the password the 5 dots remain, my password is longer than 5 characters. Is that just a default visual password screen or is there really a 5 character password I'm missing somewhere? When I change the password it changes but the 5 characters remain......I think I'm just gonna end it all. ;)

"and it keeps telling me command not found" ; what command is that ?



if the command you are trying is password - it is "passwd" not "password"


This reminds me of the story of the guy lost for days in a snowstorm, finally decides to just go peacefully to sleep, end it all. They found him 10 feet from his front door ! Whattya doin baling now for DUDE ? You are so close !

it was passwd. I now can log in as root, but I still couldn't get my wireless to enable, I only tried for a minute though I just had to log back into windows and say thanks for teaching me how to log in as root. Now I'm gonna go back and retry everything I was trying last night. Once again thanks a lot and I'll probably need more help figuring this ***** out I jus had to say THANK YOU!

In a strange sort of way, this is how you make Linux yours. You did it, not the boys in Redmond.

You might want to look at "Users and Groups" under the System > Administration menus. Poke around your account and you will probably see that under "advanced settings" that "connect to wireless" is not selected.

I am willing to bet that Ubuntu was installed with the wireless not working....

Keep me posted on your adventures.

Ciao !

Well even logging in as root wouldn't allow me to enable wireless. I looked everywhere for users and groups, system admin settings, advanced settings, NOTHING. I remember having access to these on 11.04 but on 11.10 theres nothing, its like going around in a circle. Anymore advice? (Besides lighting my laptop up with my ar-15 of course) Its kind of funny, I've been using computers since damn near pre school and this is a problem for me?? Very sad indeed. I think I'm gonna try a reinstall but I know for a fact I had my wireless switch on when I did the initial install.

"I had my wireless switch on when I did the initial install." Better yet, have the wireless switch on and have the Sony plugged into your router with an ethernet cable. Sometimes the wireless drivers are exotic and the installation program has to get them from the net, which it cannot do if wireless doesn't work ! Maybe you did this..?


Wireless is really a bitch with Linux because some manufacturers won't release their source code. Me and almost everyone who has a wireless device has gone down the wireless road. Most of us ( not all ) have come back sane.

If I were in your boots, just getting going with Linux, I would install Ubuntu 10 .... if wireless works then there is a "distribution upgrade option" within the update manager, that could take your computer up to 11.04 and then to 11.10 without trashing your wireless settings. If it does, you just go back to the previous version.

Personally, I find Ubuntu 11 a bit too buggy for me just yet. I tried it on my notebook and that is as far as it went - the other 6 or 7 machines around here are still on 10. I used to be cutting-edge, used to be fun, then I got tired of being cut. Now I stay just one step behind the crowd - by the time I upgrade all the issues are sorted out, well most of them anyways.

That is my advice - it's fairly easy ( but time consuming ) to do. You'll nail it eventually.

Let me know how it goes !

Regards