I've done a new install of Debian Lenny recently on my acer aspire 1400 (with us robotics 802.11g wireless adapter) and after the main install it worked properly for a few days. I've installed and deinstalled a few packages due to not needing or wanting them! (sorry I can't remember which ones although I believe one was the mail daemon as I don't use the mail server on my system!) Also, I'm not (to my knowledge!) using a proxy.

Now I have problems, I can only access a few admin tools (time/date, window settings and updates for example) and I can't get into the network settings, synaptic package manager etc! It gives a message "Granting Rights" and then nothing at all! My username is in the sudoers file and the said file is still secured so that may not be the problem (or if it is then god knows why!)

What I was trying to do was get the networking working properly, I installed ndiswrapper and got it working for a few days without problems, then suddenly WHAM! it stopped working (I had disabled the ethernet port (Intel 10/100 net adapter) via terminal - editing the interfaces file which actually stopped the eth0 port from being a pain (and it was nec to disable eth0 before setting up the wifi as per the ndis instructions!) (I'm not using WEP or any security with the USR card btw) Using the ndiswrapper guide I scanned for the hub and it found it and one other hub locally (a Linksys hub - secured) both are on different channels and there are no other hubs locally using the channel i am using. The ESSID id is correct, the IP, subnet and gateway addy's are right, the internet is live and active (tested via a friends laptop when she was over yesterday) and is behaving itself! The windows side software (used in XP) says I have a strong constant signal for the wifi so I am baffled there!

Both network connections have static IP's (both worked without problems with etch, and work perfectly with my current dual boot install of XP Pro) The main hub is working without fault (as it has for over a year!) and to make sure its not the hub I have powered it down for 60 seconds and checked the setup and connectivity when powered back up, but still no joy!

The network connections on the system (in Lenny) don't see the network and I keep getting these errors on the startup boot screen (not both at once as I am only enabling one or the other at a time, not both at once):

ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready

ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

I've tried pinging the network, nothing. One thing I have noticed is that it keeps referring to IVP6 (I think that was it) whereas the network used IVP4... just wondered if this is relevant!

I have noticed though that it keeps referring to the terminal where I am trying to access the network (ie my acer) as the domain name (which it isn't as the domain name is very different!) Im not sure why this is but it is VERY annoying!

Anyone got any fixes or anything for these probs? Please be gentle as I'm not exactly a rookie to this, but then again, I'm also not brilliant at this stuff!

Geoff

Can you tell us exactly how you removed the packages? Did you use aptitude? or something else to do this. If you remove certain packages that may result in removing possibly hundreds of other packages but the good news is that you can easily restore you system. Are you using kde? gnome? something else? Have you checked for broken packages, etc.
cheers,
jdk

Ooops! forgot to add that info! Soz, here's the missing info:

I used synaptic to uninstall them all

Gnome

yep to checking for broken packages (had to use aptitude tho! Prefer synaptic... when its working!!) it said no broken packages or any other problems and 72 updates which I can't actually install! (ok, maybe with apt but I'm not 100% sure how!)

I'd rather not to a complete reinstall from scratch but if neccessary then I will ::gulp:: Don't get me wrong, I can do a full reinstall easily (done it a few times due to majorly messing up the installation for experimental (learn by mistakes!) reasons! unfortunately, this wasn't one of them!!!)

Any help you can give will be great as I know a few other people who have the same problems and are thinking of going back to windows (they ARE mad if they do in my opinion!!)

To install those pesky updates, I'd recommend assuming you've run update first. Unless you suffer from CLI-phobia I'd stick with aptitude for those installing and removing software. It's so much easier and so much more informative.
Cheers,
jdk

cool! I actually just thought aptitude was just typing "apt" then the optional extra's for installing stuff... now I know differently!

I've got the updates in (thank god!) by some fluke (I have no idea how!) the network connections woke up and started working again! YAY!! 8-) and this was pre-update or doing anything!! Talk about creepy! (I was having to post from window$)

Ok, now everything is upgraded and some stuff I don't need installed (the 64 bit kernels and stuff like that) so I'm going to shift them! Still got little access to admin tools BUT I have more than I DID have, so on that front I'm a bit happier!!!!

Still got no access to admin stuff like network, users and groups, services, printing etc but I have a sneaky feeling I need to reinstall some Gnome stuff... I'll post back if any miracles occur so if anyone else gets the problem they can sort it!

Btw, forgot to say a big thanks for all the help so far jdk

My pleasure. I'm glad you got it sorted.
cheers,
jdk

yep well thats the network peob sorted... still no idea how but I think it had something to do with stopping and restarting networking and then restarting all the interfaces again! With the updates done done, one less problem to sort... now for the admin tools prob! Btw, below is what I used for a temp fix for the wifi so I could get online... works too!! (remember you need ndiswrapper installed and config'd first!) NOTE: when I was using this the niswrapper entry in one of the scripts (don't recall which but the ndiswrapper wiki tells you how to set it up!) it wouldn't always start properly so I wrote this from the install/config instructions and a bit of research into how to make script files!! Plus the eth0 config in the interfaces file was commented out and the auto wlan0 line too as ndiswrapper didn't agree with it (as I was using static IP's)

Ok it may not be the most "clean" way to solve it, but it works!


I have a silly feeling the admin tools access problem will be easier to sort, but I don't know why... just a feeling!! I'll post back when I get it sorted (and anything else fun to do with sorting it along the way!

Can you be more specific about the "administrative tools"? Which ones can't you access. I think you're spot on about it being easy. Just tell us which ones you're looking for and you'll have them up and running in 2 shakes.
cheers,
jdk
PS I like the quote about insanity. My sentiments exactly.

ok, well tyhe majority of the tools were those found on the administration menu (network, users, time and date admin, synaptic etc) and preferences.

With regards to the admin tools problem... unfortunately I never did find the solution as I installed a few bit and bobs I remembered installing then none of the networking worked at all and the grub loader went loopey (wouldn't load xp and gave "unknown command "chainloader" " which got me mad so i did a recover reinstall and went back to the beginning! But either way I am so miffed with the prob that I'm actually (rather madly!) going to try to re-create the problem but this time make notes up to the point that it re-occurs at which point I'll post more!

The networking probs still exist so im still hunting for fixing that one! Also, I'm still hunting the fix for lenny and its annoying way of referring to itself as the domain name (in my laptops case its named "geoffdebian" but lenny calls it the domain name!!!)