internet problems with old laptop...

**chris-harry** · 08-09-2005

ok, i got this old laptop... great for what i want... to get really dirty with linux without having to worry about accidently screwing up school work or anything important... and i want to install debian on it BUT!!! i have hit a wall... and now i have a blood nose (its a joke... to warm up the water... i know... i am not funny...

ok... its got a old cd-rom drive that doesnt work!! which made me think... hmm... this means i have to install using floppies... ARRK!!! anyway... got the base system installed yay!! but now i need to install the GUI, something small and light... this is where the problems really start...

I have ADSL, me provider is BigPond, why didnt i ring them up... well, when i asked them could i talk to someone who is experienced with linux... there was this dead silence for about a good 15 seconds before the Techie replied "Um, whats that?", after a long 35 minute hold i finally got hold of a superviser who replied "Our internet doesnt work with linux" to which i replied "Then how come me brother is playing some flash game under linux" to which he replied with a long silence... anyway that got no where... so i turn to this place... where i know someone could solve me problem!!!

well, i have an ethonet card in me laptop (built-in... gar)... and when i plug the etho-cord in a little light comes on saying its working... wow... the big problem is... I DONT KNOW WHAT ETHOCARD IT IS!!! and cant seem to mount it... hence i cant apt-get.... oh i have a sad life dont i??

so is there a way to get around this problem? Any help? I'll even take links?? and yes i have searched, and tried some stuff... like pppconfig, and mounting /dev/ttps1 <--i think thats it... dont know what i was thinking???

any help wanted... thank-you very much people for reading me novel of a post...

you have finally finished and now you proberly hate me for writing so much dribble...

**bigtomrodney** · 08-09-2005

What do you get from

Code:

ifconfig

**chris-harry** · 08-09-2005

ok, i typed in ifconfig, and it came up with all this.... info/stuff... like the inet addr, and its mask...

um... with this info what can i do??? and how???

**bigtomrodney** · 08-09-2005

Just like to see the IP address. If it has puled an IP address then it should be connected. Or you may get errors...either way you'll see what ethernet adapters you have.

**chris-harry** · 08-09-2005

here is what is shown

Code:

link encap&#58;Local loopback
inet addr&#58;127.0.0.1 Mask&#58;255.0.0.0
Up loopback running MTU&#58;3924 metric&#58;1
Rx packets&#58;16 erros&#58;0 dropped&#58;0 overruns&#58;0 frame&#58;0
TX packets&#58;16 errors&#58;0 dropped&#58;0 overruns&#58;0 carrier&#58;0
collisios&#58;0 txquevelen&#58;0
RX byres&#58;1152 &#40;1.1 KiB&#41; TX bytes&#58;1152 &#40;1.1 KiB&#41;

and thats what came up... is that any help???

**chris-harry** · 08-09-2005

by the way... if this has anything to do with it... me laptop (ethocard) is connected to a speedtouch modem... i dont know what modem

**chris-harry** · 08-09-2005

just found out the internal modem of me laptop... i think... its a Xircom RealPort CardBus Ethernet 10/100+modem 56

what ever that means....

**ericrun** · 08-09-2005

I haven't done much on Linux networking. You might try

ifconfig eth0 up

Is the information you printed the only result from ifconfig? That IP address 127.0.0.1 is a loopback, which means if you send something there, it will be directed to your machine.

Are there any messages during the bootup that indicate that it can't find the network hardware? If you can't catch the messages as they scroll by, you'll have to look in the log files. I'm not sure which ones would be relevant, but hopefully someone can provide a good place to start.

Try running

lspci |less

to see if you can find your NIC. You can also run

dmesg

which will give you more information on the hardware Linux sees on your machine.

**chris-harry** · 08-10-2005

i did ifconfig eth0 up, and it froze??? WT???

**a12ctic** · 08-10-2005

install off a flash drive, i installed debain netwrok installation with a 512mb mp3 player

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