[Wolves] sudo apt-get update

[Steve Wilson]

Hi Adam. Sorry about the delay in replying - my net access tends to be intermittent.

>>Are you typing this email on the same machine which has this problem? 

No

>>Do you use a router over the network or a directly attached modem (either
DSL or dialup)?

The former.

>>Assuming you use a router as most people do these days, this sounds like
your network isn't set up correctly, either you have no DNS servers, no
default gateway or no network settings at all. Take a look at Network
Manager in the top right hand corner of your screen. Right click it and
look at Connection Information. Make sure you have a default gateway and
DNS entries.<<

They both appear to be fine in Connection Manager. Also there is no problem connecting with the machine I'm using now - an XP box.

>>Most routers use DHCP to automatically assign network settings when
machines boot. It's possible that you are either not using DHCP, your
router is handing out the wrong network settings or you're just can't
communicate with your router.<<

I configured the router I'm using now, and it's set up to use DHCP.

>>On the command line (ie Gnome Terminal) type:
/sbin/ifconfig
and mail it to the list.<<

Done and appended. Although (frustratingly enough) the Ubuntu box seems to be connected as I type this. Ah - hang on. It was downloading some updates, but now I look again, the connection has either slowed down or stopped. And _now_ it has sped up once more (stream of consciousness or what??!!). And _now_ (2 mins later) it's stopped again. (Etc, etc)

>>Not sure how familiar you are with networking, 

I only started reading up on it a month ago.

>>First, see if your web browser works. Go to any particular website. If
you get some kind of 'Page Could not be Found' error then you obviously
have a problem.<<

Never have a problem on my XP box, and sometimes have a browser problem on Ubuntu.

>>If you have a router then try to ping it from the command line, with:
ping 123.123.123.123<<

Router's OK.

>>If that fails, then you can't communicate with your router and you need
to look at why. If it works, try a DNS lookup. I always use
mail.yahoo.com for some reason:
dig mail.yahoo.com<<

That failed - no servers could be reached.

Many thanks for your help. Looks like I could use a little more :-)

-Steve

++++++++++++++++++++++

user at ubuntu:~$ /sbin/ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:e0:18:3e:92:f7  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0xa400 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:281 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:281 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:20536 (20.5 KB)  TX bytes:20536 (20.5 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:11:3b:10:6c:8f  
          inet addr:192.168.2.3  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::211:3bff:fe10:6c8f/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:48318 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:24879 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:68190308 (68.1 MB)  TX bytes:2120114 (2.1 MB)

wmaster0  Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-11-3B-10-6C-8F-63-38-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000