Fresh install of 8.10 - Wired networking not working.

[jimk3038]

FYI,

I've be thinking of making the switch to Ubuntu from Windows for a long time. I've a very casual user of Linux and wanted to make the switch for a long time. However, I always get tripped up on hardware issues. If it dosen't work right out of the box then I'm not going to put much time in on it. I've donated to open source in the past so I'm not just a freeloader.

Anyway, I popped a new hard-drive into my Dell XPS M170 laptop and fired up the Ubuntu 8.10 installer from an ISO image. Wired networking does not work at all. I've tried both static and DHCP without any luck. The network interface is BCM5705M_2.

The installer was able to get WiFi working. However, the status light showing that the WiFi radio is active does not work either.

I tried to download and install all the updates using WiFi. Even with all the updates, wired networking is not working.

I would love to switch to Ubuntu - but, I just do not have the time to sort out all the hardware problem. I'm just writing this post in hopes it will help getting hardware problems sorted for others.

Good luck,
Jim

[cariboo]

If you are really that tight for time. I would suggest next time you buy a new laptop, purchase one with Linux preinstalled.

Jim

[wpshooter]

Jim:

Have you tried the installation from the ALTERNATE (text based) CD version of Ubuntu ?

[jimk3038]

Yep,

I might try that - the little mini laptops might be an option to start with.

Thanks,
Jim

[jimk3038]

The only thing I tried was to turn off ipv6. But, that did not help either.

Thanks,
Jim

[Rangi01]

It may be an issue with your modem. When I first installed I had a similar issue (although my machine did not have wireless installed so I can't comment on that side).
My modem did not support IPV6, it turned out that simply turning that off in Firefox allowed a connection.

instructions:
open a browser page
type in the address line about:config
search for IPV6
change to false
close the window.

I understand that you don't want to / can't spend much time on Ubuntu but I find that I spend far more time maintaining our M$ windows machines than I have in setting up Ubuntu in the first place.

Hope that this is of help.

Shane

[jimk3038]

I'll give the modem change a try and see what happens.

Thanks for the tip,
Jim