New Ubuntu user, wireless connection - firefox won't work

Question

I'm new to linux. Just installed Ubuntu 11.10. Setting up seemed to go ok. I seem to be able to connect to my wireless connection ( says "connection established") but fir fox says "Server not found when i try to connect to internet.

Please remember to keep it simple if you ask me to enter code into the terminal as I am new to this.

Hope someone can help me.

Answer 1

Welcome to askubuntu, and congratulations for diving into a decent computing environnment.

I suspect your wireless is connected, but you may have a DNS problem.

Try these 2 simple ping commands, in a console:

ping google.ca

Then:

ping 173.194.73.94

If the second ping does not resolve ( it should return 3 ping results by default), this would mean you HAVE an Internet connection, just no properly configured DNS resolver.

If that is the case, I suggest you configure your DNS by following this guide.

Oh, if you need a DNS server to setup against you can use google's public dns service.

• If both pings do not resolve, it could be you are connected to your router but the router is not connected to Internet.

• If you want to rule out that firefox is the culprit, try installing chrome or even lynx:

  sudo apt-get install lynx
  

Or..

   sudo apt-get install chrome

Then, in a console:

lynx google.com

If this brings you the beautiful google page (in text mode), Firefox is the culprit. I would surprised if this was the case. I am betting you have a (quite common) DNS configuration problem.

Hope that helps. Cheers!