Linux Netbook Problem

[FritzBox]

This is quite weird

Have got an Asus 1015PX that had Ubuntu 11.10 on it, lent it to a chap at work for a few hours as he wanted to see what Linux was like. When I got it home it would not go online, either wirelessly or wired, it's getting it's IP as it shows in the Fritz and in the network adapter settings

I thought easy fix, just reinstall it, so I did but with Fedora this morning, exactly the same problem, although there is no wireless working as yet, the wired adapter just won't connect even though it's getting it's IP

I'm thinking one of the function keys perhaps, but have tried them all

Any ideas folks?

[Steve]

I wish I could remember, I known my previous installs of fedora liked to have the network adaptor connected prior to install but if it's getting a LAN IP address surely it must be working. Is this a nameservers issue?

Can you ping an external IP address? If you can that would  imply a DNS issue. Trouble is network manager I recall being a pain

[FritzBox]

It's set as DHCP at the mo Steve, the router is using OpenDNS, normally I set Google DNS to override my restrictions, but have left it as simple as possible

As you can see my lappie has no such problems, nor does my pc

[Glenn]

Is the install picking up a DNS address?

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/suse-linux/66916-new-install-no-internet-no-reason.html

[FritzBox]

Thanks Glenn will look more closely when I've not had a few

The thing that confuses me the most is, it was absolutely fine before this guy had it for a few hours. Not much could have been done with it in that time as it was not logged into the net at work

Plus it's since been reinstalled

[Technical Ben]

Sounds like most problems. It's between the chair and the keyboard (the previous one, not you ). This is why I never lend gadgets out.  

[pctech]

I'm assuming the Fritzbox is still online and shows the WAN IP allocated to it by your ISP?

When I connected a new router yesterday I found oddly that it would only connect via PPPoE.

Wondering if OR have been doing some tweaking in some areas where FTTP/FTTC is being rolled out and are now using the same encapsulation for both?

[D-Dan]

What do you have in your /etc/hosts file?

It may also be worthwhile starting dhcpcd manually after acquiring the IP address, just to test. In a terminal type:

Code: [Select]

sudo dhcpcd
Then see if you can connect to anything. (ping your router, or google or whatever as a quick test). Try the ping to google both ways:

Code: [Select]

ping www.google.co.uk
ping 8.8.8.8

[FritzBox]

What do you have in your /etc/hosts file?

It may also be worthwhile starting dhcpcd manually after acquiring the IP address, just to test. In a terminal type:

Code: [Select]

sudo dhcpcd
Then see if you can connect to anything. (ping your router, or google or whatever as a quick test). Try the ping to google both ways:

Code: [Select]

ping www.google.co.uk
ping 8.8.8.8

It appears I can ping google and google DNS, no timeouts

I don't have a hosts folder in /etc

[nowster]

I don't have a hosts folder in /etc

It shouldn't be a directory; it should be a file.

What's in /etc/resolv.conf?

[FritzBox]

It shouldn't be a directory; it should be a file.

What's in /etc/resolv.conf?

Just going to stick openSUSE on it

[D-Dan]

Well, if you can ping an external address then your connection is working. Surely fixing what seems to be a relatively minor problem (compared with a not working connection) is preferable to re-installing, but hey - it's your call

[FritzBox]

Well, if you can ping an external address then your connection is working. Surely fixing what seems to be a relatively minor problem (compared with a not working connection) is preferable to re-installing, but hey - it's your call

I don't mind a good reinstall Dan

SUSE was the same though, it's weird

Going to go back to Ubuntu again

[FritzBox]

What do you have in your /etc/hosts file?

It may also be worthwhile starting dhcpcd manually after acquiring the IP address, just to test. In a terminal type:

Code: [Select]

sudo dhcpcd
Then see if you can connect to anything. (ping your router, or google or whatever as a quick test). Try the ping to google both ways:

Code: [Select]

ping www.google.co.uk
ping 8.8.8.8

Reinstalled Ubuntu

Can ping router, can ping 8.8.8.8 but not google.co.uk

sudo dhcpcd gives me "command not found"

/etc/hosts file reads along the lines of

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 nameofnetbook

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 hosts

::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::0 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters


/etc/resolv.conf reads as

#Generated by network manager

[Steve]

My understanding is the resolv.conf file contains the nameservers obviously yours is empty , also that it can be overwritten on reboot so any amendments unless protected will be lost


http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/ubuntu-linux-configure-dns-nameserver-ip-address/


The above may be helpful including the comments, I've never learnt vi but found nano easy enough to use

[D-Dan]

I'm not sure about ubuntu, but you could try creating a file called /etc/resolv.conf.head and including in it:

Code: [Select]

# OpenDNS nameservers
nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

Obviously you can substitute whatever nameservers you want. resolv.conf.head should be automatically added to resolv.conf at boot, avoiding the overwriting problem.

[FritzBox]

Thanks Dan will have a look the weekend, 12 hr days this week so can't face it

Any ideas why this would have happened, it was fine on the very first install?

[Steve]

It's not picking the Fritzbox as the nameserver for some reason so without manual entry to the local adaptor it's clueless of any web address.

[FritzBox]

I'm not sure about ubuntu, but you could try creating a file called /etc/resolv.conf.head and including in it:

Code: [Select]

# OpenDNS nameservers
nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

Obviously you can substitute whatever nameservers you want. resolv.conf.head should be automatically added to resolv.conf at boot, avoiding the overwriting problem.

How do I do this?

Oh, got Mint on it at the mo

In /etc/resolv.conf I do now have this

# Generated by NetworkManager
search www.google.co.uk
nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4


/etc/hosts

Is pretty much the same as before, as it's not mentioning anything about ip4 which I'm using, guessing that's where the problem lies?

[D-Dan]

Well, you already have nameservers configured (google nameservers as it happens, but that's OK). ipv4 settings aren't stored in a single configuration file, but are actually represented by a conglomeration of files that for a large part represent little more than switches, all stored in /proc/sys/net/ipv4 (if you do "ls /proc/sys/net/ipv4" you'll see all the files responsible), though it's extremely rare that you would have to configure any of these manually, and then only for a specific purpose rather than troubleshooting.

Just as a matter of interest (and working from memory here - been a while since I used Mint, having switched via Debian to Arch in the past year) but open up your network manager (it should be accessible from the tray icon) and find the option to disable ipv6. Don't panic, you are only disabling it on your local network, your router takes care of the external network. I seem to remember I once had a similar problem, and ipv6 was the problem. Once it was disable the problems went away.

[FritzBox]

Well, you already have nameservers configured (google nameservers as it happens, but that's OK). ipv4 settings aren't stored in a single configuration file, but are actually represented by a conglomeration of files that for a large part represent little more than switches, all stored in /proc/sys/net/ipv4 (if you do "ls /proc/sys/net/ipv4" you'll see all the files responsible), though it's extremely rare that you would have to configure any of these manually, and then only for a specific purpose rather than troubleshooting.

Just as a matter of interest (and working from memory here - been a while since I used Mint, having switched via Debian to Arch in the past year) but open up your network manager (it should be accessible from the tray icon) and find the option to disable ipv6. Don't panic, you are only disabling it on your local network, your router takes care of the external network. I seem to remember I once had a similar problem, and ipv6 was the problem. Once it was disable the problems went away.

The Google DNS is that way as that's how I've configured the wireless adapter to bypass OpenDNS blocks. Set it up that way on all the other distros but it wasn't showing in the file.
I've noticed as well that in the routers network items that the netbook is sometimes showing as using the routers IP?
Pretty sure ipv6 is disabled, I usually disable it in windows etc, will double check in the morning
Think this thread could be running for a while

Yep it's disabled

I can ping www.google.co.uk, www.bbc.co.uk, 8.8.8.8 and my router 192.168.240.125 with no time outs

If I try to use Update Manager I get, dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run "sudo dpkg -- configure -a"

System updates also fail

[D-Dan]

And have you run:

Code: [Select]

sudo dpkg --configure -a?

That error is telling you that the package manager has been left in a state of flux after the last failed update, and the command is (it's attempt) to get you to fix it. If that fails you could try:

Code: [Select]

sudo apt-get install -f
Which will try to repair any broken packages. Afterwards, try the update manager again.

[FritzBox]

If I run "sudo dpkg --configure -a"

I get as the last line "Warning: No support for locale: en_GB.utf8"

Running "sudo apt-get install -f"

Gives me as last line "0 upgraded 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 345 not upgraded"

Still wont go online via Firefox either

It's showing in the Fritz!Box network list as having the IP I set 192.168.240.155 under the correct name, it's also showing as with the name Fritz with the IP of the router

[FritzBox]

Trying to run Update manager gives me

"Could not connect to packages.linuxmint.com:80 (204.45.82.194). - connect
(113: No route to host)

[nowster]

traceroute 204.45.82.194
perhaps?

[FritzBox]

Traceroute gets there in 11 hops

11 server.gutterclusterbuster.com (204.45.82.194)  185.487 ms 86.723 ms 194.705 ms

[FritzBox]

Think I might chuck Win 7 Home Premium on it today

[D-Dan]

will it update in the terminal?

Code: [Select]

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

[FritzBox]

Too late Dan at the moment currently got Win 7 Ultimate on it, working fine as you can see after install of wireless driver

I'm on my hols at the mo so will try Mint(Quite like Mint) again today, it could be that installing Windows might have fixed the problem? Straws and clutching

[FritzBox]

Found my disc of Mint 11 so chucking that on at the mo

That worked perfectly last time so I see no reason why it shouldn't work again

[FritzBox]

Ha, success, now updating a treat. Will try to update to 12 and see what happens

Will also go grab a stick of 4gb memory and try that to see if it works without any adverse effects

[FritzBox]

4gb stick wouldn't boot

Appears I can't update to 12 from 11, so shall I risk another attempt at 12 I wonder?

Thanks for all your help everyone, especially D-Dan

[D-Dan]

You should be able to update with:

Code: [Select]

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
However, many people using Mint have decided to stick with 11 rather than 12, simply because it's nicer

[FritzBox]

You should be able to update with:

Code: [Select]

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
However, many people using Mint have decided to stick with 11 rather than 12, simply because it's nicer

The thing that really bugs me is the keyring, which pretty much makes it impossible for my other half to use it lol

Thanks for the commands, will get stuck into those in a mo

[D-Dan]

The keyring shouldn't prevent her using it. If you have set her up with her own account it's likely that it will be a normal user account. You can add that account to the list of sudo users by editing the sudoers file, but don't do it directly. Instead, do:

Code: [Select]

sudo visudo
Assuming the user name is "normaluser" (change to suit), in the new editor (it's probably a terminal editor based on vim) using the arrow keys to scroll to the section headed ## User privilege specification and add an entry in this section:

Code: [Select]

normaluser ALL=(ALL) ALL
Save the file by presseng Esc followed by :x!

Voila - the normaluser account should now be able to use sudo to perform tasks needing administrative privileges (provided you pass on the password, of course).

As I said - replace "normaluser" with the actual account name.

[FritzBox]

You're losing me now Dan

[D-Dan]

lol - OK - baby steps. How does your partner normally log on to your machine to use it? Do you share the same user account or have separate user accounts?

[FritzBox]

lol - OK - baby steps. How does your partner normally log on to your machine to use it? Do you share the same user account or have separate user accounts?

Share the same account, the problem being she will have to manually select the wireless network with the icon at the bottom and use the keyring password to get the wireless working. Far too tricky

As another issue, I did try 12 again this afternoon as a live session, it still won't access the net even though I manually configure the IP's as I have in 11

[D-Dan]

Ok - assuming that you stick with 11, to solve the logging on thing with wireless:

Right click the network icon to pop open the menu and open the main interface
Select your wireless network and choose the "Edit" button
In the new window that opens are two checkboxes, one at the top "Connect automatically" and one at the bottom "Allow anyone to use" (Or something like that). Make sure that they are both checked.
Save (if necessary) and close. In future you shouldn't have to do anything to connect wirelessly. It should all now be automatic.

NB. I don't actually use a network manager, so I'm working from memory a lot here. It should be enough to get you looking in the right place, even if I've not got it exactly right, though.

re v!2 not working - do you know what wireless adapter/chipset you have? It may be that the firmware has been dropped and you need to copy it back.

[FritzBox]

Ok - assuming that you stick with 11, to solve the logging on thing with wireless:

Right click the network icon to pop open the menu and open the main interface
Select your wireless network and choose the "Edit" button
In the new window that opens are two checkboxes, one at the top "Connect automatically" and one at the bottom "Allow anyone to use" (Or something like that). Make sure that they are both checked.
Save (if necessary) and close. In future you shouldn't have to do anything to connect wirelessly. It should all now be automatic.

NB. I don't actually use a network manager, so I'm working from memory a lot here. It should be enough to get you looking in the right place, even if I've not got it exactly right, though.

re v!2 not working - do you know what wireless adapter/chipset you have? It may be that the firmware has been dropped and you need to copy it back.

All sorted now, well done Dan and thanks. Best I leave it alone now and stop playing

As for 12 it's a Broadcom chipset. It doesn't seem to have any problems connecting to the router, it's just getting online it seems to have trouble with

[D-Dan]

As for 12 it's a Broadcom chipset. It doesn't seem to have any problems connecting to the router, it's just getting online it seems to have trouble with

Installing b43-fwcutter may help, though no guarantees. Whenever I see wireless problems on the forums, it's not uncommon for the name "Broadcom" to be in there, too. Perosnally, I use a Ralink PCI wireless card, and all I had to do was copy the .fw file to /libs/firmware and it just worked. If only all chipsets were as co-operative.

[Glenn]

With Mint 10 and my Dell Mini 9, I used ndiswrapper to install the wireless card driver (a windows version)

http://www.idnetters.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,23830.msg565816.html#msg565816

[FritzBox]

Just stuck Mint 13 Maya rc on it. No problems what so ever, weird