wiFi

You haven't given use ANY details of what wireless device you have. This is ESSENTIAL to use helping you. There are literally THOUSANDS of different wireless devices you can possibly use.

You can help us (and yourself) by giving the output of:

sudo lshw -C network

I suggest you use a wired connection and get fully updated as well as to make giving the output a lot easier.

Thanks

 *-network:0 DISABLED
       description: Wireless interface
       product: PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 3
       bus info: pci@0000:01:03.0
       logical name: eth1
       version: 05
       serial: 00:0e:35:d3:b9:bc
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ipw2200 driverversion=1.2.2kmprq firmware=ABG:9.0.5.27 (Dec 12 2007) latency=32 link=no maxlatency=24 mingnt=3 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
       resources: irq:5 memory:fcffe000-fcffefff

Ok if you run:

rfkill list

What is output?

rfkill list

0: phy0:Wireless LAN
           Soft blocked: no
           Hard blocked: yes

Then you have a killswitch on the system to turn the wireless off and on, you need to switch it on. You may have to press a key combination or it may be a simple toggle switch on the system itself.

thanks for all you help, i figured it out