internet connection on Kubuntu Hardy

[Thorny]

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:51:29 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote:

> I have set up a laptop for my granddaughter with Kubuntu Hardy installed. 
> It is fully updated.
> 
> The needs are:
> 
> A UK English base for most programs and the desktop.  So a UK English
> installation.
> 
> Japanese input from the keyboard.
> 
> Wireless connection using DHCP.
> 
> The first two I have, tho' the second took a long while.
> 
> The internet connection is proving a nightmare.  I can find no way of
> making the settings endure, and no way of setting up DHCP at all.
> 
> Both ethernet and the wireless card will work for one session, and one
> session only, if I put static settings in, but although I am told that the
> settings have been saved, they clearly have not.
> 
> I have tried installing and uninstalling knetworkmanager.  It seems to
> make not a blind bit of difference.
> 
> While it was uninstalled I tried editing /etc/network/interfaces but
> Kubuntu seems just to ignore it.  I have reinstalled knetworkmanager
> (which seems to be only an applet anyway, that links to the network
> settings in the control panel), renamed /etc/network/interfaces and left
> the network manager to reinstate it.  Still the settings do not endure
> past a restart and still DHCP simply doesn't work.
> 
> Can anyone offer any advice?  Or recommend another distro that would
> fulfill the criteria?  She needs this laptop and I have been trying to get
> it going and fulfilling the criteria since the middle of August.  She is
> beginning, with some justification, to ask why I don't just use Windows.
> 
> TIA
> Lisi

I have no experience with networkmanager but I have seen it written
several places as "network mangler" by people who have had frustrations
with it. 

To make sure you are really back to a place where manual config could work
perhaps it is necessary to go lower level than the K frontend. You could
try purging networkmanager, it's the deamon that tries to keep a
connection always up and which has caused lots of people difficulties,
since Debian Etch if I remember correctly.

With it purged, you should be able to manually configure your ethernet
interface in /etc/network/interfaces with auto; inet; dhcp and when you
restart networking it should ask the router's DHCP server for an IP
address. ...or at a terminal (with sudo if appropriate on your system)
ifconfig (interface) down followed by ifconfig (interface) up. That should
read the manual configuration ...or, at least, drop some error message.