Get internet working in Linux

How to get internet working in Linux?

Unless your network hardware is very weird/old, you'll have drivers installed when you set up networking at OS install time. Linux has much better support for old and legacy cards than Windows. If your card is truly ancient, you might want to splurge the $6 it will cost to get a modern Ethernet card from 3Com or DLink. If you don't know your gateway and DNS settings, allow them to be obtained from your ISP via DHCP from your cable modem or DSL router. Almost all modern distros have a networking configuration tool. It will be under 'Configuration' or 'Preferences' or something similar from the main menu. Select the interface you want to configure (usually eth0) and tell it to get configuration data from DHCP. There might be a setting to activate the interface on boot; make sure it is selected. If your interface won't start up on boot, try typing 'ifup eth0' at the command line. To see what interfaces you have and what their settings are, try typing 'ifconfig' from a terminal window. To see what your machine thinks the gateway is, type 'route -n' from a terminal. The line you see with the Flags field set to UG is the next hop route i.e. your modem or DSL router.

If you're going via a firewall or internal router which is not acting as a DHCP server, you will need to set up your connection as a static IP address (you will also need to do this if you want to run your machine as an intranet server). For this you will need to know the address of the gateway (usually something like 192.168.1.1), the netmask (usually 255.255.255.0) and some DNS settings which you will need to obtain from your ISP. You would use the same graphical connection tool as for setting the system to get info via DHCP, except you choose 'static' for the interface you want and then enter the required settings.