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I might have been using Ubuntu and Linux in general for only a little while now.

I am relatively new to AskUbuntu.

I have a problem with my wireless internet and wanted to ask a question on AskUbuntu to try to get help with it.

Are there any specific things I should include in my question so that I get lots of good answers, or links to answers that will help me, instead of mean comments from high-reps working the review queue?

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If you kindly take the time to follow these steps, it will help people looking at your question determine what wireless hardware is built in to your computer. This is necessary to know because each wireless card has its own set of things that can go wrong with it and things that can be done to remedy the situation.

If you are having wireless problems, you should do all of these things:

  1. State, clearly and with as much detail as possible, What the problem is and What you've done to try to solve it, if anything.
  2. On the PC that's having issues, open up a Terminal with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+T. Type the following command in, hit Enter, and copy and paste the complete output into your question: lspci
  3. Next, run the following command in the terminal as well: sudo lshw -c network and hit Enter. You will be prompted for your password, which you should type in and hit Enter again. This command will take longer to complete. Nothing will appear when you are typing your password. Paste the complete output of that command in to your question.
  4. Only if you have a USB wireless dongle (if in doubt, skip): Enter lsusb in to the terminal and hit Enter. You will not be prompted for a password this time. Paste the complete output of that command in to your question.

It would be preferable if you could hook up to an Ethernet connection and simply ask the question that way. However, some laptops do not have wired connection capabilities. If your laptop does not have an Ethernet port, follow the above steps, with the following exceptions:

  • In step 2, replace the command with lspci > AUlspci.txt
  • In step 3, replace the command with sudo lshw -c network > AUlshw.txt
  • In step 4, if you are using a USB wireless dongle and are thus following step 4, replace the command with lsusb > AUlsusb.txt
  • After running the commands, you will have two (or three, if you followed step 4) text files in your Home folder beginning with "AU". Copy them to a USB thumb drive, write them to a writeable disk, or record them to some other form of media that can be read by a PC that has a working internet connection and can be used to ask a question on AskUbuntu.
  • Open the files on the working computer (the files are readable by any operating system) and copy and paste their contents into your question.
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