Lubuntu 13.10 no wireless Internet connectivity [closed]

Question

Lubuntu 13.10 no wireless Internet connectivity

I am new to Lubuntu (and anything like it). I downloaded 13.10 to replace Windows ME. I chose to download it and save it onto a memory stick through a Windows laptop. On Windows ME computer I downloaded Lubuntu through to a USB stick, then used the option of trying it before making the decision to scrub ME from the system.

It seemed to download well and I made the decision early on to make use of the option to scrub ME and run solo on Lubuntu.It seems to fire up well and quickly. Clicking on anything provides a quick response and so on. However. the visible non functioning parts (in my inexperienced opinion) are:

1 - You have to hover over files and apps to be presented with the associated icon. Not all files and apps are icon less but 90% are.

2 - It will not offer my wireless hub as an option for connecting wirelessly. I subscribe to Sky Internet as part of my TV package.

The hub is the newer one provided by Sky - Model SR101. My two laptops work well with this hub wirelessly.

3) - The DVD drive does not perform well in two areas. Firstly the button to open and close the drawer does not always work since uploading Lubuntu. When inserting a DVD, it offers the actual folder of the chapter which if double clicked does play. It does not join the chapters together to provide what I would call a normal DVD/VCD user experience. Again it the icon appearing with the name of the chapter is intermittent and most do not have the icon with the name.

Of all the points above my must have is not being able to connect to my wireless hub. On the subject computer wireless connection is attained through a dongle plugged into a USB port.

Whilst the dongle (which is new) only came with a windows driver I think it works OK in Lubuntu as it offers next doors wireless connection as the only choice for connecting wirelessly (my modern laptop confirms this option as a nearby wireless connection offering).

I have not tried connecting to my Sky internet using a direct line feed as I’m not sure if that proves anything in that I would not want to use it in that way in any case. However if it is advised that I do this I will. Any help would be much appreciated. The other points are should haves. I would be grateful for any help you can give? Should I try and reinstall Lubuntu in a different way for example.

Here is a system report

Processor AMD Athlon(tm) Processor 
Memory 248MB (145MB used) 
Operating System Ubuntu 13.10  
LG CD-RW CED-8120B  
Kernel Linux 3.11.0-12-generic (i686) 
Desktop Environment LXDE (Lubuntu) 
Misc 
Uptime 44 minutes 
Load Average 0.19, 0.18, 0.21 

Processor 
Name AMD Athlon(tm) Processor 
Family, model, stepping 6, 4, 4 (AMD Athlon (Thunderbird)) 
Frequency 1302.23MHz 

Memory 
Total Memory 248244 kB 
Free Memory 13952 kB 
Buffers 35688 kB 
Cached 89568 kB 
Cached Swap 0 kB 
Active 84380 kB 

Host bridge VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133] (rev 81) 
PCI bridge VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133 AGP] (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) 
FireWire (IEEE 1394) Texas Instruments TSB12LV26 IEEE-1394 Controller (Link) (prog-if 10 [OHCI]) 
Communication controller Conexant Systems, Inc. HSF 56k HSFi Modem (rev 01) 
Ethernet controller Accton Technology Corporation SMC2-1211TX (rev 10) 
ISA bridge VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 22) 
IDE interface VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 10) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP]) 
USB controller VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 10) (prog-if 00 [UHCI]) 
USB controller VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 10) (prog-if 00 [UHCI]) 
Bridge VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 30) 
Multimedia audio controller VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 20) 
VGA compatible controller NVIDIA Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) 

This Machine 1302 MHz 89.851 
Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.50GHz (null) 40.8816714 
PowerPC 740/750 (280.00MHz) (null) 161.312647 

Answer 1

To play a DVD use this script I put together for my daughter (it prevents multiple launches).

# RunOneVLC.sh

# NOTE: to skip the Run in Terminal | Display | Cancel | Run dialog box:
#     In Nautilus, choose Edit - Preferences - Behavior - Execute Text Files : Run executable text files when they are opened.

LOCKFILE=/tmp/vlclock.txt
# see if the lockfile already exists / the process is already running
if [ -e ${LOCKFILE} ] && kill -0 `cat ${LOCKFILE}`; then
    echo "already running"
    exit
fi

# make sure the lockfile is removed when we exit and then claim it
trap "rm -f ${LOCKFILE}; exit" INT TERM EXIT
# echo the pid into the lockfile (creating it)
echo $$ > ${LOCKFILE}

# do stuff
vlc dvdsimple://dev/dvd -f

# remove the lockfile
rm -f ${LOCKFILE}

wireless

I'm not positive on the wireless driver, and the wrapping got funny in your pasted text, but here's the significant part.

udf Universal Disk Format Filesystem zram Compressed RAM Block Device arc4 ARC4 Cipher Algorithm w35und IS89C35 802.11bg WLAN USB Driver nouveau nVidia Riva/TNT/GeForce/Quadro/Tesla mac80211 IEEE 802.11 subsystem snd_via82xx VIA VT82xx audio

Ignore the italics (they show surrounding text), the bold is important. I'm not sure if the w35und is attached to the wifi or surrounding. IS89C35 is the wifi chip you'll want to search for, such as "IS89C35 wireless lubuntu 13.10".

See if this command shows you anything. It helped on an old Dell. A Hard Block is like when you have a wifi disable switch on a laptop. Soft Block is some software blocking or configuration issue.

rfkill list all

If I remember right this tries to clear Soft Blocks.

rfkill unblock all