internet on Ubunto

SuperSeagull

Can anybody give a complete novice a simple step by step guide of how to connect to wireless wifi in newly installed Ubunto. EG go to ?? click on?? then go to ?? etc. Thank you.

psychic_teabag

As in the other thread, first thing to do is find out what hardware you have, and whether any necessary firmware has been installed.

lspci or inxi in a terminal window should list hardware. Might need to install the inxi package if it isn't installed by default. (Using whatever software package manager you prefer.)

https://sourcedigit.com/22009-ubuntu-system-information-command-line-ubuntu-hardware-information/

Looks like there's also lshw and lshw-gtk (a graphical front end) available. I haven't tried any of these. ('ls' is the linux command line to list files. So it's commonly used as a prefix in other commands that list things, such as lspci = list pci devices ; lshw = list hardware ; lsusb = list usb devices.)

It's a while since I've set up wireless. I tend to edit text config files rather than using gui tools (and I probably use archaic network tools rather than the current batch). One command that's useful is
sudo iwlist scan
which shows a list of access points the network can see.

SuperSeagull

Sorry that is all too technical for me I do not understand it.

When I had Windows installed to the left of the power button is a wifi button (blue) which came on but with Ubunto this does not show up and I cannot switch it on.

thorganby

SuperSeagull wrote: »

Can anybody give a complete novice a simple step by step guide of how to connect to wireless wifi in newly installed Ubunto. EG go to ?? click on?? then go to ?? etc. Thank you.

It is years since I made the first WiFi connection on a clean install and the only problem that I remember that was it would not connect if my router was set to channel 13.

After changing the channel number to a more standard channel in the range 1 - 11 it connected fine.

Step by step instructions here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/net-wireless-connect.html.en

You will also fine more helpful tutorials etc. on the community forum here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/index.html.en

DoaM

thorganby wrote: »

It is years since I made the first WiFi connection on a clean install and the only problem that I remember that was it would not connect if my router was set to channel 13.

After changing the channel number to a more standard channel in the range 1 - 11 it connected fine.

That's usually more a sign that the WiFi card in the device is a US model ... CH13 isn't available in the US but it is in the UK. (I had the same problem with my work's Dell laptop when I took it home to use ... my home network back then was using CH13 and my work laptop couldn't see it).

DoaM

SuperSeagull wrote: »

Can anybody give a complete novice a simple step by step guide of how to connect to wireless wifi in newly installed Ubunto. EG go to ?? click on?? then go to ?? etc. Thank you.

I guess this shows that your fundamental problem isn't the Linux distro you're trying to use, seeing as you had the exact same issue with Mint.

thorganby

DoaM wrote: »

I guess this shows that your fundamental problem isn't the Linux distro you're trying to use, seeing as you had the exact same issue with Mint.

I think that you are making assumptions and jumping to conclusions here, as this laptop has not first been connected to the net to allow any necessary drivers to be downloaded, whereas these may not require downloading for ubuntu to connect via wireless.

e.g. Mint does not install any dependency marked: Recommends.

The problem is Mint does not install any dependency marked: Recommends.

Ubuntu does by default but Mint does not.

More info on this here:

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=185770

Think positive!

psychic_teabag

DoaM wrote: »

I guess this shows that your fundamental problem isn't the Linux distro you're trying to use, seeing as you had the exact same issue with Mint.

I think the differences between the different distributions tends to be in the installers and the choice of graphical tools / desktop. They all tend to use the same low-level pieces (and of course, kernel). (systemd vs traditional init was a differentiator for a while, but I think that battle has been lost.)

That's also the reason it's harder to give you an answer along the lines of "bring up this tool, choose the 4th item from the 3rd menu and choose the second radio button in the dialogue that pops up. We all have slightly different desktops and distribution-specific gui tools installed on our systems for configuring this stuff. (Or none - as I said, I tend to find it easier just to edit the text config files directly.) But the underlying command-line tools tend to be the same on different systems. I imagine that the people who actually maintain the low-level systems use command-line tools rather than gui tools to configure them (though I have no evidence for this). It's a lot easier to automate tests and things with command-line tools.

I probably could have helped you with mint, since I have one running downstairs (to help when MIL needs support with her mint system), but even then, it's a couple of years out of date, and mint has more than one desktop I believe.

debian does have a very strict policy on what it considers free, so will tend to resist giving you non-free software by default. That includes the firmware for devices. Not sure to what extent ubuntu and mint deviate from this. (They are both derivatives of debian with their own policies.)

esuhl

psychic_teabag wrote: »

I think the differences between the different distributions tends to be in the installers and the choice of graphical tools / desktop. They all tend to use the same low-level pieces (and of course, kernel). (systemd vs traditional init was a differentiator for a while, but I think that battle has been lost.)

Not really -- there's quite a few different components. For example, what software do you use to connect to wifi? wireless_tools, iw, wpa_supplicant, iwd...? Maybe you have one of the many network managers that acts as a graphical front-end to one or more of the wireless components?

Anyway, once you know what software your distro uses to connect wirelessly, you should be able to find the documentation to set it up.

SuperSeagull

Where do I type that command wireless_tools etc . I have replaced Mint with Ubunto but still not able to connect to the internet. I am now drawn between going to my local repair shop to ask their advice or accepting that Linux is not for me and reverting back to re installing Windows 10.

that

SuperSeagull, you probably already have addressed this, so I appolgise in advance for not reading things thoroughly trough!

But why do you not plug it into an ethernet port, just so that it get onto the network, and from there after you can go wireless again. Or, plug it into someone elses network port, then take them to the pub - cheaper than going to the shop

Network cables are cheap too