Networking in general not working. please help.

[mricotomo]

I have a dell inspiron 6400. I am completely new to linux and have just installed the main edition of mint 12 (32-bit) from a dvd. I ran into problems with my wireless but from the community.linuxmint.com i found 2 users (community.linuxmint.com/hardware/view/9867) with the same laptop who had fixed these problems simply by installing proprietary drivers. At this point i was connected to the internet via an ethernet cable, no trouble there. I downloaded/activate the driver recommended in the additional drivers window. That is Broadcom STA wireless driver. This didn't fix the problem. From a youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBSnIScnq5c) it was recommended that i go on to install the broadcom-sta-common and broadcommon-sta-source drivers which i did. finally as per the advice of suffolk_rich (1 of the 2 users mentioned above) i used sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer in the terminal. after this i rebooted my laptop and noticed that i could no longer connect to the internet via ethernet much less wifi. Beforehand I clicked on the 2 computers icon in the top right of the desktop and acessed the network settings. There i saw 3 tabs on the side 1wired connection 2wireless connection and 3network proxy. Now i open it and it shows me the wired connection in the main part of the interface but only the network proxy tab on the left. additionally Wired connections cant be turned on and cannot be configured. additionally opening "network connections" will show all tabs but not recognize ethernet or wireless connections.

[HogNation]

I have a Dell too and ran into the same problem. I went into my router and just released the IP and then renewed and it has worked since. May be worth a try for you as well.

Also, if you can't get your router page to load you can try looking into this: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001078.htm

[mricotomo]

I have a Dell too and ran into the same problem. I went into my router and just released the IP and then renewed and it has worked since. May be worth a try for you as well.

Also, if you can't get your router page to load you can try looking into this: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001078.htm

Im not sure i understand could you elaborate on that?

[HogNation]

Yeah, but before I type a huge long post do you have a router that you use? I'm assuming you do. If so what brand? Netgear, etc?

[mricotomo]

If so what brand? Netgear, etc?

Its an actiontec Verizon (fios) roter

[HogNation]

Okay. Most routers have an address to login. So in a browser try typing 192.168.1.1 and it will prompt you for a login and password. The login is more than likely admin and the password is either password or password1. Looking at the bottom of the router may tell you the password and login. Once you're in your router administration area you will see something similiar to maintenance or something like router status. Once you find that area you're looking for connection status. From there you can release the connection (it may already show as 0.0.0.0) or something like that, and if so try hitting renew. This should grab your connection back. I'm not 100% sure how the router you have works exactly so you may have to look around for a little bit until you do find that connection status area...if all that sounds confusing the link I posted may be the best route to try first...if you try the link direction you need to type sudo before anything on that link....so for example, sudo fconfig eth0 down, but you may not have to use sudo as well. Let me know if that works or if you need more assistance and I'd be happy to help you as much as I can.