internet and network no connection in various flavours of Linux
 

I have been having difficulty with my BT Broadband over the last few weeks, it has now been resolved, but I can no longer connect to either my home network or the internet from my laptop though when I re-installed windows 7 the connection was automatic. I can see the link but can't connect.I also dual boot Vista with Mint 8 Helena on my desktop box and cannot connect Helena to either the network or the internet. My router is a BTHomeHub2 and it was recently suggested that it could be being blocked by BT!! Does anyone know if this could be the case, please?

If you cannot connect to your home network, that would have nothing to do with BT. Their influence should stop at your modem.

Possible testing ideas; I am assuming that your modem and router are two separate devices, since you did not describe your network topology:

1. Disconnect your router from the modem. Test whether you can now connect to your home network (I'm betting you won't be able to).

2. If you are using wireless, test connecting to the local network with an ethernet cable connection. If it then works with the modem disconnected, shutdown your computer and router, reconnect the router to the modem, let it boot, then boot your computer with the cable connection and test the internet.

3. Take your laptop to an internet-enabled public wifi site and test there.

You have to isolate each component as much as possible for testing.