[HELP] Linux (Ubuntu) unable to connect to my Router

More information needed!

Wired? Wireless?

Encrypted? WPA? WEP? Open?

What else connects to the router?

Wired.
It is not a wireless router.
And another PC and Lap-top are connected to the router.

Can those two machines see each other? Do they file-share? Can your Ubuntu see there files? Are you able to connect to the internet but just not file-share? Usually at least one of those things works easily but often both need some setting up.

Please can you go up to the top taskbar and click on

Applications - Accessories - Terminal

and into the terminal/command window/console type

ifconfig

there should be (but probably isn't, yet) a block that contains stuff like "eth0 ... inet addr:192.168.0.10"? Also if you can type into a command-line on the Windows machines "ipconfig" (it's "P" for Windows "F" fo linux <shrugs> ). These inet numbers are standard internal LAN numbers which the router translates them into something else for the outside world. Don't let people know the one that the outside world sees for security reasons but the internal one would be good to know. You should be able to get each of the Windows machines to ping each other and the router. Lets say the laptop's number was 192.168.0.3 then on a command line on the desktop machine

ping 192.168.0.3

should start spewing out some very tiny time-intervals, this is how 'long' it takes a signal to travel from the desktop to the laptop and back. you'll need to press CtrlC at some point to stop the pinging from going on. Back to the Ubuntu machine you should be able to also ping the laptop (but probably can't yet, please let us know tho) same command from the terminal console

ping 192.168.0.3

again its CtrlC to stop it. If the laptop is 192.168.0.3 then the desktop is likely to be 192.168.0.2 and the router almost always takes the number one slot. This is the one that it's really important to be able to ping so try

ping 192.168.0.1

Note that where i have written 0 the chances are good that it's a different number but 192.168 is pretty standard for most home or small office networks.

Please let us know how you get on with this!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

I have tried what you asked me, but I can't seem to "ping" anything.
Since it says "Network is unreachable".

Can't the Windows machines ping each other?

What do you mean?
One of my desk-top is using Windows-XP and the other is using Linux.
The desk-top that is using Windows-XP has no problem going online, which I am now using to get online.
But I can seem to connect the the desk-top which is using Linux to the router even though the line is connected.

If you don't have access to the other machines and if the network administrator wont tell you what the internal ip addresses are then we are going to have to 'hack into' the network. Which should probably be quite easy but i would use a different distro and it might take a little while to set that all up & does of course assume that the network is unencrypted and i am assuming you have a legitimate right to be on the network but that the network admin is just too busy to be helpful.

If you do want to start trying to hack into the network then i would recommend downloading almost any small distro, my preference for this would be Wolvix Hunter
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix

lol, good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Ahah, brilliant - please ignore my last posting there!

On the Xp desktop machine try opening a "command window" (we usually call it a terminal console in linux). Usually to get one it's something

"Start" button menu - All-Programs - Accessories

and its called something helpful like "cmd.prmpt" or "MSDOS" (which always seems a bit 'shout-y' to me). anyway, once you've got one open try typing

ipconfig

and tell us the inet address, please ;)
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Here is the result:

Windows IP Configuration

Ethernet adapter:

  Connection-specific DNS Suffix:
  IP Address: 192.168.1.10
  Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
  Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1

Ethernet adapter:

  Media State: Media disconnected

Ahah, so your router address is likely to be (at least internally, within your LAN) 192.168.1.1 so get to a terminal console in Ubuntu and type

ping 192.168.1.1

and see if you have a basic connection in there.

If you get no results from this then check cabling, i think. Also the Ubuntu machine's "ifconfig" might be handy - just the inet address, if there is one. If there isn't then please let us know and we can try to set one static one or try to nudge the router into supplying a 'dyamic' one by dchp, this 2nd option is the preferred one i think :)
Good luck with all this!
Regards from
Tom :)

Err, when i say check cabling then i just mean check that it's plugged in at both ends, i think that's about it ;)

The cabling has no problem, but I still can't ping anything from the PC that's using Linux.

type these two lines into your terminal in ubuntu and let us know what it says :)
ifconfig eth0
lspci|grep Network