Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

[Daniel]

Can anyone offer any specific suggestions for getting kubuntu to connect to the internet on an Averatec 3200 laptop? (Had the same problem with SuSE.)

The livedisk installed and ran, both on the laptop and on the desktop, but konqueror connected to the internet only on the desktop, not the laptop. Both are connected to the same router, and thence to a cable modem.

I'd like to install Linux on the laptop so I can play with it and learn it hands-on, before deciding if I want to switch over entirely from Windows.

I ran Unix on my 80286 many years ago, and I'm computer-literate, but know nothing of systems administration, and I'm completely new to Linux.

Thanks.

Daniel

[askrieger]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

The crucial issue is the nature of your internet connection. I'm going to guess that it is wireless, because if you were connecting to the router via an ethernet connection, it would have "just worked" out of the box. But on the off-chance that you really do have a problem with an ethernet connection, I suggest that you look at the two copies (on the desktop and the laptop) of the file /etc/network/interfaces and see if and how they differ. My guess would be that the problem would be one of dhcp leases.

If, as is more likely, your problem is with a wireless connection, then the only reason anyone cares what brand and model of laptop you own is so that they can determine the brand and model of the wireless card so that they can determine the brand and model of the wireless CHIPSET, which is the thing that makes all the diffeerence. You can start at the Wireless Troubleshooting Page on the Ubuntu Wiki. In addition there are pages devoted to particular chipsets and to particular wireless cards. Basically, some are easy to get working and some aren't.

Good luck and be sure to come back here with any questions. You'd be surprised by how many of the members here have been in the same boat.

[Daniel]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

The crucial issue is the nature of your internet connection.  I'm going to guess that it is wireless, because if you were connecting to the router via an ethernet connection, it would have "just worked" out of the box.

No, my connection is ethernet. And since kubuntu works on the desktop, and the laptop works with Windows, I'm guessing kubuntu doesn't know how to configure the laptop. It may be significant that SuSE does the same thing on the laptop.

I found the \etc\network\interfaces file on the desktop install and copied it to a USB flash drive so I can access it later when I boot the laptop and I will compare. However, I wonder if I am just looking at the file on the livedisk. in which case it will look the same on both machines. I am reluctant to actually install it on the laptop unless I can get it to access the internet, as re-installing windows is a hassle.

[Daniel]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

Okay. The \etc\network\interfaces file is the same on both computers. I'm pretty sure it's just being read from the livedisk.

I'm beginning to suspect that kubuntu just does not recognize the ethernet card in the laptop.

[askrieger]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

I'm sorry, I completely misunderstood, when you said "the live disk installed and ran", I thought you meant that you had used the Espresso installer on the liveCD to complete an actual installation of Kubuntu on both machines after satisfying yourself that they worked.

Nonetheless, it is extremely rare for Kubuntu to fail to recognize a cat5, wired ethernet, network interface card. Perhaps it would help if you provided some details of your setup. Are you connecting the laptop through a usb cable?

It is possible, however, for kubuntu to get confused by "strange" (i.e. not straight dhcp) internet addressing configurations and unusual Network Adress Translation setups. How are you connecting to your ISP? What kind of router/switch do you have on your end? Is your ISP's interface a cable or DSL modem or something else?

Most impoprtant what's the difference between the way the laptop connects and the way the desktop connects.

Added later: I found a couple of references for you Debian Linux on an Averatec 3200 (Debian is the parent of Kubuntu). and here are all the titles on the Ubuntu wiki referring to Averatec laptops. Everyone seems to agree that they work about as well as any laptop works with Linux. And here is a guy who solved a problem getting his ethernet connection to work with an Averatec laptop.

[Daniel]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

Thanks for all that.

Information about my setup:

My ISP is Comcast. Cable modem: Surfboard SB 4100. Ethernet router is a Linksys, but I cannot get close enough to get a model number. The desktop and laptop computers both plug into the same router, and both work fine with Windows, but under kubentu only the desktop computer connects to the internet.

Here's a quirk: when I installed SuSE on the laptop, it went on-line and successfully (automatically) downloaded the updates. But when the install was finished, Firefox would not connect to the web. I lack the know-how to even begin to try to figure out why.

Both computers use the same kind of ethernet cable. The kind that looks like a phone jack on the end, but wider. The ONLY difference is that (obviously) they plug into different sockets on the back of the router, but otherwise the connections are identical.

Later today, when I have the time, I am going to go ahead and try to install kubuntu on a partition of my laptop. At least then I'll be able to try changing settings.

Daniel

[Daniel]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

Okay, I have installed kubuntu on my laptop from the livedisk. It runs, as before. But it still won't connect to the web. The network settings appear to be the same as they are on my desktop computer, except for the last digit of the IP address, which I assume refers to the socket on the router, as one ends in .000 and the other ends in .001

Additionally, there is an icon in the system tray that tells me there are 52 updates, but when I click on it, it asks me for a password, and when I enter mine it tells me "Unable to communicate with su." The installation process never asked me for a separate password for su, but some other settings require administrator mode, and when I click on that it asks me for my password, and my regular password works. Only the upgrade thing complains.

I am leaning toward the conclusion that my laptop just won't accept Linux.

Since I have a lot of stuff on the desktop computer that I'm using all the time, I'd rather not have to use it to try out Linux because that would mean frequent re-boots to go back and forth

daniel

[Daniel]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

More information:

I was able to get the updater to run. I don't know what I did differently, if anything, but I had shut the computer down and rebooted.

The updater was able to connect to the internet and update a bunch of stuff. But konqueror is still unable to connect to the web.

This is identical to the behavior of SuSE Linux on the same computer!!! Very frustrating!

[askrieger]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

Use Firefox as your web browser. Also, stop using Adept, it is beta software at best. (The Debian organization considers it alpha.) Use the command "sudo apt-get install synaptic" to get synaptic. Then, right click on the desktop and run the command "kdesu synaptic", then use synaptic to download firefox. When you want to check for updates use synaptic to reload the repository files and (in synaptic) click on status>installed(upgradable). That will permit you to decide which software upgrades, if any, you WANT to install.

[Daniel]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

"sudo apt-get install synaptic" results in "Package synaptic is not available, but is refered to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source. E: package synaptic has no installation candidate."

So I downloaded the Linux version of firefox from the Mozilla web site to my Windows computer, moved it to the laptop (Linux) computer using a USB flash drive, and unzipped it there, but I cannot figure out how to install it. None of the unzipped files shown as "executable" actually does anything.

Daniel

[askrieger]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

You shouldn't have to mess around installing deb files by hand.

I suspect that you have a problem with your /etc/apt/sources.list file, which lists all the repositories to search for a particular software package. Start Konqueror and navigate to the /etc/apt/ directory. Right click on the file "sources.list" and click on "preview in" and "embedded advanced text editor". The text of the sources.list file should now be visible. If the line about your cd-rom is NOT commented out with a '#' character, you have to do so.

Start a konsole (Kbutton>System>Konsole). Enter the line

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Enter your password when requested. This will start a console editor. You cannot use your mouse in nano so navigate to the cdrom line with your arrow keys. Type a # character at the start of the line. Now, press Alt-B, this will copy the original file to the disk as a backup. Then press Ctl-O, this will save the modified file if you press Y. Exit nano with Ctl-X.

Now you should be able to use the internet accessible repositories. While you're still in the konslole, type the following commands:

sudo apt-get update  <---You may need your password again
sudo apt-get install firefox synaptic

If ypu get this far successfully, we can try for a high-powered source list from source-o-matic, but that requires a working firefox.

[Daniel]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

Okay. The details of editing the sources.list file were a bit different, but I managed to edit it. However, I didn't see any lines I could identify as refering to the CD ROM. Following is the text of the original sources.list file:


# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
#deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper main restricted
# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
#deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-updates main restricted

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'universe'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu security
## team.
# deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper universe
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper universe

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
# deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted
# deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe

What I did instead was to UN-comment the last two lines in the next-to-last paragraph (the paragraph that begins by talking about the backports.

When I then ran sudo apt-get update there was a fairly long delay, and then the error message "Could not resolve us.archive.ubuntu.com" followed by a long list of errors about failing to fetch a long list of files.

I presume that "could not resolve..." meant that it was unable to connect to the internet.

I also tried switching the last paragraph, so the commented lines were uncommented and the uncommented lines were commented, but, not surprisingly, the result was the same. If the machine cannot resolve the internet address, nothing else really matters.

[Daniel]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

Postscript:

Since I can download whatever I like to my windows computer, and move it to the Linux computer with the USB flash drive, is there a way I can install Firefox without using update from the laptop?

I did download the firefox-1.5.0.4.tar.gz file, and put it on the laptop, but I cannot figure out how to install it.

I'm not terribly hopeful, however, because firefox under SuSE would not connect to the internet from the same computer.

[askrieger]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

The line that you really need to uncomment is the line:

deb [url]http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/[/url] dapper main restricted

You can also uncomment the "deb src line if you wish, but you don't need it. You should also uncomment the line

deb [url]http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/[/url] dapper universe multiverse

and add the word "multiverse" after universe (as I have shown).

At the moment there's nothing in the backports repository, but as Edgy development picks up, there will probably be some backports to download.

There is a way of installing software to a computer that has no internet connection, but it's sufficiently complicated that I would hesitate to try to explain it to a noob. Please understand, I'm not trying to be a snob. It's just that you'd have to establish a repository on your desktop, and then move a (large) bunch of "deb" files over to your laptop. Then, assuming you got all the dependencies right, you could install them with dpkg. And, yes, I'm trying to snow you so that you will understand that this is not a trivial endeavor compared to getting your laptop connected to the internet and installing the standard way with apt-get, aptitude, synaptic, or even adept.

[Daniel]

Re: Averatec 3200 won't connect to internet

Thank you very much for all your help. I do understand that you are not being a snob. I know enough about computers to know that some tasks are beyond me.

Anyway, I still get the same error: Unable to resolve the internet addresses. I repeat that, since SuSE did the same thing, and my main computer does not, I think there is something incompatible about my laptop.

It's unfortunate that software cannot be installed in Linux as easily as on Windows, where a single executable file unpacks and installs itself with little or no interaction from the user.

For now I think I'm ready to give up on trying to get Linux to run on my laptop. I have written to Novell asking if they have a list of laptops (I don't really have the space to set up a second desktop) guaranteed to run SuSE, and if they do, I may try that. But otherwise it really looks as though Linux is not ready for the likes of me.

Again many thanks for all the time you've taken helping me try to get this thing to work. I guess I'm stuck with Windows for a while longer.

Daniel