The upgrade from 11.10 to 12.04 would have been a smooth one, if I didn't have to deal with an internet connection randomly dropping problem:

The drop in the connection can be anything from 15 seconds to about 3 mins, and then the connection comes back. This behaviour happens while I am actively browsing the Internet, or if I wake up the computer and open Firefox (sometimes I have connection and sometimes I don't) . The connection when it is on is not slow (as speedtest.net results) but just "hangs" randomly like an Enzo Ferrari in Manhattan

In the beginning, I thought it was a problem with the driver r8169 for my RTL8111/8168B Ethernet card on my Alienware Aurora R3, so I downloaded the r8168 from Realtek website, followed the detailed instructions (blacklisted r8169, changed the file to .bsh ...), but still the same problem persisted.
So I switched to a wireless connection, and I got the same problem with Internet connection dropping randomly.

I also saw the same problem with my Toshiba Portege.


Anyway finally I stumbled across the following command:


Code:
sudo echo nameserver 8.8.8.8 > /etc/resolv.conf

and voilà! all problems were solved! I am not entirely sure what the above command but I just wanted to share it.



Cheers!