Bringing Ubuntu into my Network and Thus Online

[SuperDawn]

I have an old computer with 128 megs of memory and one hard drive of 120 gigs. I have gone back and forth between installing Ubuntu and Puppy. Right now, despite advice against it because of the limited memory, I am thinking of sticking with Ubuntu. Puppy has some problems but that is not what I want to address right now. What I want to ask about in this discussion thread is how to get Ubuntu onto the Internet.

I think I get it, but I want to be sure. There is a menu option called "Network Connections" and it opens a window that has several tabs. Since I have a wired connection, I click on the "Wired" tab where it shows my connection in a list box. When I click on Edit it opens another window that displays a MAC address and there is an "Apply" button. When I click on this, there is an Authenticate window that opens up and it prompts me for a password.

Here is my question. Is this password that it is asking for the same thing as the password that my router uses?

[mrrangerman43]

No, it will be the passwd you set up at installation for logging in to your account. Any time you make changes that need admin privileges you will use this password. If you have other people that use your system, make a Guest user account for them so you can keep them from making changes to your system that may break it.

[SuperDawn]

I see.

The system does not automatically connect to the Internet.

This, I think is because I go through a router. Do I have to set up the network proxy preferences by hand? Is the HTTP proxy the same thing as the http address of the router?

I have run "ifconfig" from the command line and there are addresses and masks assigned. So I am wondering if I have to use the "network proxy" dialog to set things up by hand.

[ehawk]

I never remember having to do anything special. If ubuntu was installed and connected to the router, it would just auto-configure when I booted it up.

Here are some instructions from the ubuntu help forums. If you stick with ubuntu, you can also post there with questions. The ubuntu community has a reputation for being very helpful.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Router

If it is not really a router, but just an internet hub, you have to do some work to share the internet connection between several computers connected to the hub. A true router doesn't have this problem.

Here is info on how to do connection sharing of the same ip address:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...nectionSharing

Oh, I just noticed a threat that looks like it is from you!

http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9663931

I didn't have a chance to read through it thoroughly, but I hope they were able to help you!

[SuperDawn]

It was a bad cable, as strange as that may seem. When tested on my working system, the connection failed. When I replaced the cable, I was able to get on the internet with the Ubuntu system.

[ehawk]

Wow, great example of a maxim in troubleshooting: check the easiest/cheapest "fixes" that are consistent with the problem first. I ran into a similar problem once and found that someone had pulled the cable from a working "internet jack/port" and reinserted it into one that had not been activated.