Chapter 7. Internet

Table of Contents

Connecting to the Internet
Configuring a network
Web browsing with Firefox
Send and receive emails
Instant Messaging
Other Internet applications
Design web pages

This section describes a number of tasks related to the Internet, including how to connect to the Internet, configure and use a web browser, and use other types of Internet programs.

Connecting to the Internet

Basic Procedure

This section describes the basic procedure for connecting to the Internet.

[Note]

If you have a wireless connection or connect to the Internet through a modem (including an ADSL modem), and this section does not work, you should read the section called “Wireless Cards” or the section called “ADSL Connections”.

To connect to the Internet:

  1. Open ApplicationsSystemNetwork.

  2. Go to the Connections tab and click the connection you wish to use to select it.

  3. Press Properties to change any settings.

  4. If your ISP or network administrator has given you an IP address, set Configuration to Static IP address, then enter the address in the IP address field and click OK. Otherwise, set Configuration to Automatic configuration (DHCP) and click OK.

  5. Tick the box next to your connection to enable it.

Wireless Cards

Many wireless cards are automatically detected by Xubuntu during installation. To see if your card is supported, open ApplicationsSystemNetwork. If your wireless card is listed, you can follow the section called “Basic Procedure” to connect to the Internet. You need to enter a valid ESSID value. If in doubt, type any. A complete listing of wireless cards which work with Xubuntu can be found online at the Ubuntu Wiki. Please add your wireless card to the list if it works with Xubuntu.

If your wireless network is protected by WEP encryption, ensure that you specify your network password when configuring your connection.

  1. Press ApplicationsSystemNetwork and click the wireless connection you wish to use.

  2. Press Properties, choose Password Type and enter your WEP password in Network Password form below.

  3. Press Ok and Close to apply changes.

Unsupported wireless cards

Some cards may not work automatically with Xubuntu. If this is the case, please look at the Wireless Troubleshooting Guide on the Ubuntu Wiki which is an excellent resource for troubleshooting wireless cards.

If your wireless card does not work with Xubuntu, you may have to do some research in order to activate it. A relatively reliable way of getting a wireless card to work is to use the ndiswrapper tool which allows Xubuntu to use the Microsoft Windows driver for the wireless card. To do this, follow the instructions below in the section called “Using Windows wireless drivers”.

All other information regarding wireless networking on Xubuntu is collected at Wireless Networking Central on the Ubuntu Wiki.

Troubleshooting

Check for device recognition

  1. Open a Terminal (ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal) and type the command: sudo lshw -C network

  2. If there is a driver listed then see the section called “Check device is on”.

  3. Set up NDISWrapper (the section called “Using Windows wireless drivers”).

Check device is on

  1. Many wireless network devices can be turned on or off. Check to see if the device is turned on by opening a Terminal (ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal) and type the command: sudo lshw -C network.

  2. If it is turned on then see the section called “Check for a connection to the router”.

Check for a connection to the router

  1. Open a Terminal (ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal) and type the command: iwconfig.

  2. If there is an entry that says ESSID="" then see Setting Up WPA (the section called “Configuring WPA support.”

  3. If the ESSID for our router is shown there may be a problem with ACPI support. Boot the kernel with the pci=noacpi option.

Check IP assignment

  1. Open a Terminal (ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal) and type the command: ifconfig.

  2. If there is an IP address shown see the section called “Check DNS”.

  3. From the Terminal enter the command: dhclient if_name where if_name is the connection listed earlier.

  4. If you receive a message that says bound to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx then see the section called “Check DNS”

  5. If not then reboot the system.

Check DNS

  1. Open a Terminal (ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal) and type the command: ping 82.211.81.158.

  2. Now type the command: ping www.ubuntu.com.

  3. Type the command: cat /etc/resolv.conf. If there is no nameserver listed then contact your ISP and find out your primary and secondary domain name servers. Once you have this information see the section called “Wireless Cards”.

Using Windows wireless drivers

Even if your wireless network card does not have a native Linux driver, you may still be able to get it working with ndiswrapper. Ndiswrapper is a Linux module which allows Xubuntu to use Microsoft Windows driver for wireless cards (in most cases).

[Note]

These instructions apply only to the x86 and AMD64 versions of Xubuntu, and not to Xubuntu for Power PC (PPC).

[Tip]

If you have access to the Internet, you can see if your wireless cards is in the list of cards supported by ndiswrapper on the ndiswrapper website.

To install ndiswrapper, install the package ndiswrapper-utils (see Chapter 11, Adding, Removing and Updating Applications). This package is provided on the Xubuntu CD. If you have access to the Internet, you can also optionally install a graphical tool, ndisgtk from the Universe repository (see the section called “Software repositories”).

In order to set up ndiswrapper, it is necessary to obtain the Windows driver for your wireless card. Generally, the best way to do this is from the CD supplied with your wireless card. You should copy two files to the same place on your computer, one ending in .SYS and one ending in .INF. If you find any files which end in .BIN, also copy those. If you are not able to find the right files, and have alternative access to the Internet, you may be able to obtain help from the ndiswrapper website.

If you have installed the graphical tool ndisgtk, to set up ndiswrapper, simply select ApplicationsSystemWindows Wireless Drivers from the menu, and follow the instructions given.

If you have not installed the graphical tool, use this procedure:

  1. Open ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal and type:

    sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/Desktop/drivername.inf
    [Note]

    The above command assumes that your .INF file is named drivername.inf and was copied to your Desktop. Replace these values if necessary.

  2. To check if it is working correctly, type:

    ndiswrapper -l

    If it is working correctly, you should see:

    Installed ndis drivers:
    {name of driver}  driver present, hardware present

  3. For ndiswrapper to function, you need to load a module. To do this, type:

    sudo depmod -a
    sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
  4. To ensure that the module is loaded each time you boot the computer, type:

    sudo ndiswrapper -m

You should now be able to connect to the Internet by following the instructions at the section called “Basic Procedure”.

Wireless network security

Configuring WPA support.

WiFi Protected Access (WPA) is an based on WEP and provides stronger security.

WPA is integrated with Network Manager. You must also have the wpasupplicant package installed.

If you need to manually configure WPA support, see the Wiki Entry.

ADSL Connections

All PPPoE and router-style ADSL modems that use an Ethernet connection are supported by Xubuntu, and some USB ADSL modems are supported too.

For a router-style ADSL modem, simply follow the section called “Basic Procedure”

For information on setting up a PPPoE ADSL modem see the section called “PPPoE Modems”.

For information on setting up a USB ADSL modem see the section called “USB ADSL Modems”.

PPPoE Modems

This section is about setting up an ADSL Internet connection using an ethernet PPPoE modem.

You will need to have subscribed to an Internet Service Provider, and your Internet connection must be installed and functional. A "DSL" light on your modem usually shows that the line is synchronized.

You will need your username and password for the account. You must also have an ethernet card connected to your PPPoE modem with the correct type of cable.

Finally, you need the PPPoE package to be installed in order for the following command to work. This package is installed by default, but can be missing if the configuration has been changed. If the following command does not work, you will need to install this package, which can be found on the Xubuntu CD.

To set up the modem:

  1. Open ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal

  2. In the terminal type:

    sudo pppoeconf
  3. A text-based menu program will guide you through the next steps, which are:

    1. Confirm that your Ethernet card is detected.

    2. Enter your username.

    3. Enter your password.

    4. If you already have a PPPoE Connection configured, you will be asked if it may be modified.

    5. Popular options: you are asked if you want the “noauth” and “defaultroute” options and to remove “nodetach” - choose Yes.

    6. Use peer DNS - choose Yes.

    7. Limited MSS problem - choose Yes.

    8. When you are asked if you want to connect at start up, you will probably want to say yes.

    9. Finally you are asked if you want to establish the connection immediately.

  4. Once you have finished these steps, your connection should be working.

To start your ADSL connection on demand, in a terminal type:

sudo pon dsl-provider

To stop your ADSL connection, in a terminal type:

sudo poff dsl-provider

USB ADSL Modems

Often parts of ADSL USB modem drivers are proprietary, closed source software, with a restrictive licence, and so the whole driver cannot be supplied with Xubuntu. To get a modem to work with these drivers, you will need to download files from Internet with a computer having a working connection, then transfer the downloaded files to you Xubuntu installation.

[Warning]

USB is far from the ideal medium for network access. If you have a modem that can connect both via USB and ethernet, or an ethernet router, you should use the ethernet connection instead of the USB modem.

Since any USB modem installation will require Internet access to download the necessary proprietary drivers, as well as extensive configuration which is beyond the scope of this guide, all we can do here is to list the USB Modem models known to work with Xubuntu with links to the relevant installation instructions on the Xubuntu community help site.

The installation procedure of USB modems differs depending on the specific make and model of your modem. To identify model of your modem, note the name and number on the front. Occasionaly you may have to look for a label to discover the exact model. Consult the list below to see which driver your modem requires and note the link.

When you go online to download the necessary drivers, you can access the relevant driver download links from the page with the installation instructions relevant to that model of USB modem.

Dialup Modems

Most dialup modems are not supported by Xubuntu, but drivers can be found that will enable the use of such modems. You need a working internet connection to proceed. First you need to identify what chipset your dialup modem is using. Open ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal and type:

wget -c http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/packages/scanModem.gz 
gunzip -c scanModem.gz > scanModem 
chmod +x scanModem
sudo ./scanModem 

Read carefully instructions on the screen and follow them if necessary. Once the script obtains the relevant information, type:

mousepad Modem/ModemData.txt

Read this file, it should list what modem chipset you have. Once you are aware of the chipset you have, see http://www.linmodems.org/ and follow the directions for your modem. More infomation can be found at SettingUpModems on the Ubuntu Wiki.

Network Manager provides graphical tools to configure a modem connection.

[Important]

You will need to know the following information:

ISP Phone Number; Username; Password.

  1. Open Network Manager(ApplicationsSystemNetwork)

  2. Select Modem Connection

  3. Choose Properties and fill out the fields.

  4. Click OK

Tools to help with network connection problems

If you have a network connection which is not working properly, you can use a few tools to help diagnose what the problem is.

Most of the tools in this section require use of the Terminal, which you can open by pressing ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal.

Identify wireless connections

iwconfig allows you to change certain settings of your wireless hardware. However, it is also very useful for identifying wireless connections.

To identify a wireless connection:

  1. Press ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal to open a Terminal

  2. Type iwconfig in the Terminal and press Return

  3. You should get output similar to the following:

    lo        no wireless extensions.
    
    eth0      no wireless extensions.
    
    eth1      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"WLAN Name"  
            Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.432 GHz  Access Point: 00:12:CF:02:6F:EC   
            Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   Sensitivity=8/0  
            Retry limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
            Power Management:off
            Link Quality=75/100  Signal level=-54 dBm  Noise level=-89 dBm
            Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
            Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:1
  4. The column on the left gives the name of the connection, such as “eth0” or “wlan0

  5. If the column on the right says “no wireless extensions”, that connection has not been recognized as a wireless connection and is probably a wired network connection

  6. If the connection has been recognized as a wireless connection, details of the wireless connection will be shown in the column on the right

    • ESSID gives the name of the wireless network that you are connected to, if any

    • Link Quality gives a measure of the strength of the wireless signal

Find information about wireless connections

iwlist is able to display information about your wireless connection.

  1. Press ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal to open a Terminal

  2. Type the following commands in the Terminal and press Return to run them. Make sure that you replace eth1 with the name of your wireless interface, if it is different.

    • iwlist eth1 accesspoints - Show a list of available wireless access points

    • iwlist eth1 rate - Show a list of all possible transmission rates for your wireless connection, including the current rate

    • iwlist eth1 key - Show information about wireless encryption

Get information about the current connection

ifconfig is intended to allow you to change the settings of your network connections, but can also be used to list information about the current connection.

  1. Press ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal to open a Terminal

  2. Type ifconfig eth1 in the Terminal and press Return, replacing eth1 with the name of your network interface if it is different.

    • inet addr gives the current IP address of the connection

    • HWaddr gives the MAC address of your network device

Check if a connection is working correctly

A good way of checking if a connection is working correctly is to ping another computer on the network or the Internet.

To check if you are connected to the Internet press ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal and type:

ping -c 8 xubuntu.com

After a while, xubuntu.com ping statistics should appear. Look at the % packet loss.

  • 0% packet loss - Your computer should have a good connection to the Internet

  • More than 0% packet loss - Your computer probably has a poor connection to the Internet or a poor wireless signal

  • 100% packet loss - Your connection is set improperly, or your computer is connected to an access point or router which is not connected to the Internet

If you get an error message which says ping: unknown host 'xubuntu.com' , then your computer is probably not connected to the Internet or cannot reach a DNS server.