I am using Windows XP OS and have a very good broadband connection through a wired modem. How do I access the web. It seems everything I click on needs an internet connection. At this moment I feel like giving up Linux. It would be a shame.

Could you be more specific about your problem? Accessing net isnt a problem on Linux. But only thing is how do you do it in Windows? ADSL modem? Could you give more information on ip addressing? What is the ip address of your windows system or adsl modem? Do you use dial up connection or is it always on?
Also what distro are you using?

We'll need to know a lot more details:
1) What is the model of the modem? Is it a USB or ethernet modem?
2) Do you have an ADSL connection or cable or what?
3) You didn't even mention the Linux distribution you are running.

For now I'll take a guess: run the command gnome-control-center and go into Network Configuration to see if you can configure what you need yourself. Most chances are that you'll be able to find the solution by yourself. If not, give us more details including what you tried and where you are still stuck.

Most broadband modems can use either an USB or an Ethernet connection. When possible, use the ethernet conneciton and everything should work out fo the box, as long as you have dhcp enabled. If you need specific ip/dns settings your ISP must provide these, if they don't then usually automatic dhcp detection should be fine.

If you only have USB available then you are going to need a driver for your modem and additional setup, and that can be problematic at times. If it's a dialup modem it can be worse, overall if we speak about internal winmodems, which are not true hardware modems. So, if you are not using an rj45 cable to connect to an ethernet card, we will need to know more about your current setup, the modem you use and how it is connected.

Hello chaitanya,
Thankyou for replying to my problem so speedily.
At the age of 78 I find technical terms rather daunting but I will try to answer your queries.
I dowloaded and installed Ubuntu 8.10 Linux a week ago and had no problems. Problems began whenever I clicked on anything it required access to the Internet, this I didn't have.
I use an ADSL Modem MT882 supplied by TalkTalk it is always on. I connect through an USB, I have no ethernet connection on my PC.
IP Address 192.168.1.3 Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway 192.168.1.2
Phys Address 00.1D.6A.R2.AA.6A
I don't know how much of this is relevant, but still!
charnevis

Well I have never used adsl usb modem. So I do not know about it but tldp says that you need the proper driver for its functioning. If you connect the usb modem to your Ubuntu machine does it recognize it?
To see connect the modem and give the command dmesg to look if it is taken by Ubuntu.