About as green as you can possibly be....

[howoriginalAU]

Hello everyone. Well, I'm new to these forums and to linux (although I have played with other distros before), however I am in no way proficient with any linux system yet (I would go so far to say that even novices have more experience than I do). However, as with anything new I understand there will be difficulties as I go and by working through them I'll improve. Basically, if someone wouldn't mind helping me with a few problems / questions that I have it would be GREATLY appreciated!

1. My major issue at the moment - I have tried for a while now (with my Dad as well) to get my wireless internet working but the only thing that will make the internet work is if I actually plug in an ethernet cable (which is a relief of some kind - at least it shows that my Atheros wireless card is supported). This is my greatest stressor at the moment, as I would like to learn and use Kubuntu 8.10 a lot more in the future (hopefully replacing 95% of the time I spend with Windows), however without the internet I know that I will probably give up.

2. In almost every Linux forum I've looked, there are people who just give console commands like they're nothing. For example (sudo apt-get blah blah). How the heck do they know 'exactly' what the name of the package is?! It's beyond me, that's for sure.

You can probably see how much of a hopeless case I am with Linux, and I hope you and I can help rectify this somewhat.

Thanks in advance for your time

[kevinc]

Re: About as green as you can possibly be....

Hi, here is one link that may help with your wireless:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3100137.0

and here http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3099811.0
#8 (also the others have lots of useful info)

Regarding the names of packages, they are all shown in the package manager. As there are over 25,000 no one expects you to remember them. Adept, Synaptic and other package managers have the names.
An alternative to install one particular package is sudo apt-get install package-name

Use the search box in these forums and you will find links to many, many useful posts, howto's, faq's and much more.

Also just click on "Kubuntu Forums" then see the huge range of possibilities, spend some time looking at what is there and you will find lots of useful information.

[Fintan]

Re: About as green as you can possibly be....

You can probably see how much of a hopeless case I am with Linux, and I hope you and I can help rectify this somewhat.

Welcome to the party and rest assured. You are not alone. Most of us here started in the same fashion (me very much included) but you will find this forum very useful and helpful.

As kevin pointed out you can do most of your software installation with a package manager (adept...not so adept and synaptic)

I would suggest installing synaptic as it is very easy and stable.
simply copy / paste:

sudo apt-get install synaptic

into the terminal and let it to the rest.

You will then find it in kmenu->system->synaptic (package manager)

For more:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticHowto

Sorry I can't help with your wireless issue but if you post a thread pertaining to you problem someone will certainly jump aboard.
Maybe: Issues with wireless card "xyz" on Intrepid.

also try and be as specific as possible.
- card type
- machine specs (cpu, ram, video, etc)

enjoy

[howoriginalAU]

Re: About as green as you can possibly be....

Thank you both very much for the warm welcome and the timely reply! It's greatly appreciated

I will try to get most of my info from searching (since I've had a bad habit of asking questions that have already been answered in the past ) but those links have been very helpful

I actually look forward to becoming more proficient at this

[The Liquidator]

Re: About as green as you can possibly be....

On the question of your wireless, the first thing to do is to find out whether the hardware is supported under Kubuntu, or whether a bit of black magic is called for.

Was your wireless card detected upon installation? An easy way to find this out is to right click on the network icon in the taskbar at the bottom right of the screen. If you are in luck, you will see 2 options, (probably) eth 0 (your ethernet) and eth 1 (your wireless).

If that is the case you should actually see your wireless router. If that is the case you simply need to select make new connection (select eth1 or whichever is represented by your wireless) and follow the wizard. At this point, if your wireless connection is encrypted you will need your passwords or pass key phrase and (again with a bit of luck) once you have followed the wizard it ought to work.

If your router is not spotted then that would suggest it might not be supported natively, but all is not lost. In a terminal (the kde application is Konsole) type

sudo lspci

You will then be asked for your password. Then you will get a list of your hardware amongst which ought to be your wireless card. If you post back the result we should be able to determine whether your card is linux friendly or hostile. If the latter, even then you may well be able to make it work with your windows drivers and an application called ndiswrapper. Hopefully that won't be an issue and this will simply be a matter of configuration.

let us know

[howoriginalAU]

Re: About as green as you can possibly be....

Hi The Liquidator,

Here is the info from that terminal command:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller(rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8039 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
08:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
08:06.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
08:06.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
08:06.3 SD Host controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SDHost Controller

Sorry for the huge posting, but it seems that I have an Atheros wireless adapter - I've checked the WiFi ubuntu docs for Intrepid and followed what it wants me to do (downloading the ath5k drivers) and they ARE activated. I'm not sure why it still wouldn't work? The other original drivers that came with it are also in use (tried to deactivate, but it says they are 'still in use' and whenever I quit / reopen hardware drivers it's just activtaed again). Is this a problem and if so, how do I turn them off for good?

<EDIT> Aha! I just read what you said about wireless card detection - I only have eth0 present. So I guess the next question is - how do I get Kubuntu to detect it?

[The Liquidator]

Re: About as green as you can possibly be....

You may find this interesting:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...es/+bug/289912

Reading that, you need to ensure that you have the restricted modules for your running kernel to ensure your card works.

Hopefully when you install/reboot your card will be enabled and you can then configure it.

[Drellir]

Re: About as green as you can possibly be....

excuse me for interupting but since I'm also new and having the same problem I want to know
Printing out sudo lspci
gives me this among other stuff
00:04.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Ethernet Controller (rev a1)
Does this mean that my card name is nVidia ? If so it's not listed and then what

regards
Drellir