wireless connection but unable to browse

I have some additional information. I plugged my laptop into the wireless router and was able to establish a connection to the internet. Also, a friend was able to help me determine (over the phone) that I am not really connected to my wireless network, even though Ubuntu tells me that I am. He thinks it is a wireless device driver issue. Any suggestions on a fix will be greatly appreciated.

Another piece of information, lspci returns the following:

08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)

Which wireless card do you have?

Run this and let us know:
lshw -C network

My wireless internet is now working .... sort of. I think the problem was that I was not receiving a strong enough signal. Again, the Network Manager indicated that I had a connection when I first tried to establish one, but I actually did not have a connection. Later, I was able to establish a connection in the room where my wireless router is located. However, I lost the connection when I moved a couple rooms away. I am unable to maintain a connection in many rooms of my house, whereas with Windows, I very rarely lost a connection in any room of my fairly large house. Any reason for this?

Here is what "lshw -C network" returns:

  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 01
       serial: 00:a0:d1:82:72:ef
       capacity: 1GB/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half latency=0 link=no module=r8169 multicast=yes port=twisted pair
  *-network:0
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: wlan0
       serial: 00:16:44:14:80:75
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes ip=192.168.1.102 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
  *-network:1 DISABLED
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 2
       logical name: pan0
       serial: 6e:c7:8c:8b:f5:33
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes

Eric R wrote:
> My wireless internet is now working .... sort of. I think the problem
> was that I was not receiving a strong enough signal. Again, the Network
> Manager indicated that I had a connection when I first tried to
> establish one, but I actually did not have a connection. Later, I was
> able to establish a connection in the room where my wireless router is
> located. However, I lost the connection when I moved a couple rooms
> away. I am unable to maintain a connection in many rooms of my house,
> whereas with Windows, I very rarely lost a connection in any room of my
> fairly large house. Any reason for this?
>
> Here is what "lshw -C network" returns:
>
> *-network
> description: Ethernet interface
> product: RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
> vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
> physical id: 0
> bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
> logical name: eth0
> version: 01
> serial: 00:a0:d1:82:72:ef
> capacity: 1GB/s
> width: 64 bits
> clock: 33MHz
> capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
> configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half latency=0 link=no module=r8169 multicast=yes port=twisted pair
> *-network:0
> description: Wireless interface
> physical id: 1
> logical name: wlan0
> serial: 00:16:44:14:80:75
> capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
> configuration: broadcast=yes ip=192.168.1.102 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
> *-network:1 DISABLED
> description: Ethernet interface
> physical id: 2
> logical name: pan0
> serial: 6e:c7:8c:8b:f5:33
> capabilities: ethernet physical
> configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes
>
>

The reason is most probably because the driver for Linux is not as good
as the driver for Windows. Can you run that command again with sudo:

sudo lshw -C network

For some reason, it didn't show your wireless product.

Micah,

I was afraid you were going to say that.

I think I did run the command with sudo, but here is the output again:

eric@robertson-laptop1:~$ sudo lshw -C network
[sudo] password for eric:
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 01
       serial: 00:a0:d1:82:72:ef
       capacity: 1GB/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half latency=0 link=no module=r8169 multicast=yes port=twisted pair
  *-network:0
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: wlan0
       serial: 00:16:44:14:80:75
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes ip=192.168.1.102 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
  *-network:1 DISABLED
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 2
       logical name: pan0
       serial: 52:d9:cc:46:f1:eb
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes

I don't see that it shows the wireless device. Windows Vista Device Manager shows that I have the following:

Realtek RTL8187B Wireless 802.11b/g 54Mbps USB 2.0 Network Adaptor

In my research trying to troubleshoot my wireless connection, I read that you can install the Windows driver using ndiswrapper(?). Is this an option to get better performance. Another option I read about was simply buying and installing a different wireless adapter (Atheros?). Would this make things work better. What do you think?

Thanks for your time.

Eric

Thanks, Micah. I'll try ndiswrapper.