no internet

[adept_king]

i have been sitting here for two days, googling my fingers off and i still cannot get onto the internet using my ubuntu server.

ubuntu desktop: i got on the internet in minutes
ubuntu server: still no internet for two days

[Iowan]

Post results of ifconfig -a, lspci, and contents of /etc/network/interfaces. Is the server set up for static address or does it get DHCP address?

[adept_king]

thank you very much for your reply.
all my gooling and whining finally paid off!

--

heres the elusive formula:

i first re-installed the 3945 driver.
then found a file called compatable old drivers or something.
made that, make installed it, make unloaded, make loaded.

then iwconfig shows lo, eth0, wmaster0 and wlan0

wlan0 is the one i wanted, it had info next to it. the others do not, so ignoring them was my biggest lesson of the day.

next:

sudo dhclient wlan0 #(this command was AWESOME & my new obsession)

sudo iwlist scanning #(to find what connection you want, take note of the name and the many coloned number. very very useful.)

sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid "netwhatever" #use to fix the name of the network if its wrong by some chance

sudo iwconfig wlan0 ap xxxxxx #replace the x's with the many coloned alphanumeric string found in iwlist scanning.

and if need be do this again:

sudo dhclient wlan0 #(you might have to replace wlan0 with your own special funny little word)

go ahead and ping google.com, hitting ctrl+c when you're tired of watching the results.

and better use 'sudo apt-get update' like crazy!

i came up for air and sudo apt-get install xmonad
...a little easier than one big scary bash window?