net access with suse

[WILT]

Hi I,m a total tyro to Linux but have tried a few distros .the only one that I got to connect to the web using its GUI was puppy linux.
I recently revisited a distro of Suse which I really like the look of so I found Yast
and had a " bash" at getting to the web.I have achieved some success in that suse seems to recognise the belkin wireless card (reports the 4306 chip)and the speedtouch 7g (BT hub)router, but that's it No communication between the various elements.
I know I must provide more info so my initial question is :-
Do I use the terminal to gather the info and if so which commands for


a . how do I find out which issue of the distro I am using.
b. the diagnostics required to trouble-shoot the Net connection.

Sorry to raise this age -old problem again but I got confused by the answers to similar posts.
WILT

[daark.child]

What version of openSUSE are you running? Does the card have a Broadcom 4306 chip (check by running "lspci | grep -i net" as root or by running "lsusb" if its a usb type device".

[linuxforever]

The speedtouch is OS independent and all settings are in it.
You should reach it by typing it's IP-address in a web browser.
This is usually in the 192.168 range and could be 192.168.1.1
Then you get a setup menu.

Your network card you can reach with yast and network devices.
It is wise to give it a fixed IP-address maybe 192.168.1.10.
In DSL you can set the DNS to the IP of the speedtouch i.e. 192.168.1.1.
But that depends on the suse version how it has to be done.

In terminal you can type:
ifconfig

And look what it says.

[WILT]

I am failing miserably here, Guy's .I brought up the gnome terminal that showed the following prompt

linux@linux:~/desktop>

I typed in ifconfig and got the message no such file or directory so i figured I should have been in root .I managed to get the prompt to show


linux@linux:~/>
but I got the same response ---------- what do I do now?

[linuxforever]

Just type: /sbin/ifconfig (if ifconfig is in that folder).

But it is better to log-in as root (with root as username).

First I assumed that you did install suse and you have KDE as a GUI.
In KDE you have all graphical applications including yast.
And here you can set-up everything very easy.
Why making things difficult by not using KDE?

[gogalthorp]

did you become root by su command or by logging in as root in a gui

In any case try

/sbin/ifconfig

as root

also be sure that all is lower case Linux/Unix is case sensitive unlike windows/DOS

[WILT]

did you become root by su command or by logging in as root in a gui

In any case try

/sbin/ifconfig

as root

also be sure that all is lower case Linux/Unix is case sensitive unlike windows/DOS

I eventually managed to get the terminal to respond by clicking the reset button (this is like one of those old adventure games !)

this gave me this character on its own /

so I typed sbin/ifconfig and got this:-

{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Courier New;}}
\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang2057\f0\fs20 sbin/ifconfig\par
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:09:17:F5:6B \par
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1\par
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0\par
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0\par
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 \par
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)\par
Interrupt:21 Base address:0x2000 \par
\par
lo Link encap:Local Loopback \par
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0\par
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host\par
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1\par
RX packets:10 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0\par
TX packets:10 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0\par
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 \par
RX bytes:616 (616.0 b) TX bytes:616 (616.0 b)\par
\par
linux@linux:~/Desktop> \par
\par
\par
\par
}

[WILT]

Currently working off the bootable cd .

[gogalthorp]

Ok I'm confused are you working off a bootable system or a CD?

exactly which terminal? Is it a window in a GUI (console) or a full screen black screen?

ie how did you get there.

The info seems correct but there is extra stuff at the start I don't know why its there. Appears to be RTF header stuff. Also at the end

Someone with more wireless need to interpret the IF data but to me it does not look like it is picking up a wireless card. Did you set it up in Yast? It of course may require a driver and maybe a hammer and crow bar to get it to work but most can be made to work.

You need to be a little more precise on exactly what you have done and what is happening since we can not look over your shoulder.

Thanks

[WILT]

I am booting off the cd, I did say that in a previous post . When I boot, the screen
gives the following options :-

Open SUSE Live (gnome)
Failsafe Settings
Check Installation Media
Boot From H/D
Memory Test

If I do Nothing after a period it boots up in Suse.

To get to the terminal I have choose it from menu and it comes up as a window in the desktop ,initially with the first line indicating that I am editing the desktop. To get to a clean(root?) directory I have to choose reset and clear from the menu bar.

If I go into yast and try and configure the wireless card and the router I can get the system to come up with their identities but thats as far as I get. the output after my attempts at configuration are similar to those I copied to the last post.
the reason there is rtf headers is because I had to cut and paste the details to a txt file so that I could put them into the forum post which is, of course, being accessed via windows!. " there's a hole in my bucket dear lisa dear lisa."