[SOLVED] Internet does not work in Ubuntu 9.04

[ECJ]

I just created a dual boot system with XP and Ubuntu 9.04 on an old Dell inspiron 1000. The first thing I noticed was that the wireless did not work, and it seems clear from searching the forums that with my WPC54GS Linksys card I need to use ndiswrapper to install the driver. So I plugged the ethernet cable into my computer straight from the cable modem. Ubuntu acts like it tries to connect to the internet and then tells me there is no wired internet connection. I am brand new to Linux and not much of a computer programmer so I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing or how to go about solving the problem. The output of lspci | grep -i ethernet is:

00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 91)

The output of ifconfig is:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:43:44:87:58
inet6 addr: fe80::211:43ff:fe44:8758/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:109 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:9 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:6540 (6.5 KB) TX bytes:1494 (1.4 KB)
Interrupt:19 Base address:0x1800

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

The ouput of dmesg | grep eth is:

[ 2.621824] Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
[ 2.621840] Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
[ 4.457903] eth0: SiS 900 PCI Fast Ethernet at 0x1800, IRQ 19, 00:11:43:44:87:58
[ 31.698316] eth0: Media Link Off
[ 31.698450] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[ 77.699129] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready
[ 81.816070] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0 (sis900): transmit timed out
[ 81.816325] eth0: Transmit timeout, status 00000004 00000000
[ 82.697284] eth0: Media Link On 100mbps full-duplex
[ 88.404041] eth0: no IPv6 routers present

Thanks for your help!

[saivin]

Welcome to THE forum, ECJ!

Did you try:

sudo dhclient eth0

If that does not help, you may post the contents of your '/etc/network/interfaces'.

[ECJ]

Sudo dhclient eth0 did not help, and /etc/network/interfaces replied permission denied. The output is posted below.

Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit

Listening on LPF/eth0/00:11:43:44:87:58
Sending on LPF/eth0/00:11:43:44:87:58
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 17
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 1
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

@laptop:~$ /etc/network/interfaces
bash: /etc/network/interfaces: Permission denied

[saivin]

@laptop:~$ /etc/network/interfaces
bash: /etc/network/interfaces: Permission denied

I'm sorry, I should have made it clear. It was not a command. 'interfaces' is a file in /etc/network directory. I meant the content of that file. Open that file and see whats in there and post here.

It may sound stupid but is your cable modem ON? Does internet work in XP? As you are having dualboot, confirm this. Also, are you given a static IP address from your service provider or you use DHCP to get IP adress?

[ECJ]

The contents of /etc/network/interfaces is:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

And yes, the cable modem is on, internet works just fine in XP and always has. It looks like Comcast is issueing a static IP address here as I have the same one every time I reset the router (and yes, the address I get from the router is the same every time also).

[coopstah13]

when you use a cable modem, when it gets the IP it binds the mac address of the device connected to the modem, in this case your router, if you want to directly connect a PC to your cable modem, you must reboot the modem.

[saivin]

The contents of /etc/network/interfaces is:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

And yes, the cable modem is on, internet works just fine in XP and always has. It looks like Comcast is issueing a static IP address here as I have the same one every time I reset the router (and yes, the address I get from the router is the same every time also).

ECJ, are you sure the content of the file was only this much? Coz, its very strange there is no information related to the network port (usually, eth0. It may sometimes be different). Can you try the following.

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

This will open the file with 'nano' editor. Add the following lines at the end.

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Press CTRL+O and the CTRL+X. We'll first try with DHCP. Coz, if you have only one computer connected to modem the ip is almost always 192.168.0.2 or 192.168.1.2. Thats our internal address. Actual address for internet will be different.

[coopstah13]

that is likely not the problem, since usually interfaces are configured and controlled by network manager, I have only loopback interface in that file myself

[ECJ]

It turned out to be as simple as resetting the cable modem after disconnecting the router. Thanks guys!! Now I can focus on making the wireless work. I'll be sure to post if I run into problems there as well. Thanks again!