| From: Astrid R via talk <talk@gtalug.org> To actually solve your problem, we need to know more about:
- whether you know what your modem/router's WiFi password OR if you can set it to a new password - more details about how your computer's OS lets you set the WiFi password. My best guess is that you can click on the top right of your screen and get access to wireless settings (using Gnome's Network Manager). But I don't know and your video doesn't make this clear. Warning: this rest of this reply is perhaps longer than you might want to read. Also, it won't solve your problem. But it might help you understand what I wrote above. | Thanks for your replies. Before I go on I should say I discovered that I | no longer have the password to change the date and time, so it might not | be possible to change anything else either. There are three kinds of password that you might be talking about. 1. the notebook's BIOS setup screen (you get into that before the Linux has booted). This lets you set the date and time, and a number of other things that you probably need not change. Normally you don't need a password for this, but if someone has set the BIOS password, you will have to use it. 2. The password for the Linux "super user" or "root" (two names for the same thing). 3. The password for the your identity on the machine. Normally you have to type this in at every login, but you've set things up so that you are automatically logged in when you start the machine. Depending on the version of Linux you are using, (3) might be enough. (2) is certainly enough. With (2), you can even set (3). Do you know which password(s) you don't know? | But in case there might be a way, I hope the following is useful. | | I'm using a Dell laptop. | | Not sure if this is the distribution and release...GNU Grub 1.99-27 +deb 7u2... (This may not be useful to you but it should be useful to others helping you.) debian Wheezy, with a kernel version 3.2.0-4-486. <https://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/> (I personally don't know debian Wheezy. So someone who does know it can give you more useful help.) - your OS was installed perhaps five to seven years ago - you haven't done updates recently. Maybe never. - you cannot do updates any longer since Wheezy was only supported until May 2018. You could update to a later debian but that is more complicated. - your computer may be old enough that it might not have enough resources to comfortably run a newer OS release. | Using wifi at home. | | I don't have DSL anymore, nor the modem or router I used when I did have | it (I was using an ethernet cable) and I now have a different ISP (for | the wifi): rogers. The rogers modem is called 'ignite'. Almost all the time DSL internet is provided by a combined modem/router box. The same is true of Cable internet. So: in each case, you just connecting your computer to the box with an ethernet cable. Nothing new is needed. No password, for example. | I'm trying to | use rogers wifi at home on my laptop which only ever used DSL before. | I'm already using wifi at home on my phone. For WiFi, things get a little more complicated. The modem/router box needs to have a password for WiFi access and the computer needs to know the same one. (That would have been true in your DSL setup too.) How to think about the password problem: Your modem/router and computer need to share a single WiFI password. This is desgined to keep others out of your network. For security reasons, the password should be long and hard to guess. - if you don't know the WiFi password on the modem/router, you need to set one. - To set the WiFi password in the modem/router, you need to know another password, the one to access the modem/router's setup web page The technician who installed Your Rogers system might have left a sheet of paper with passwords for the modem/router. Similarly, on the computer side, there are two passwords involved: - if you don't know the WiFi password on the computer, you need to set one. There have been many techniques over the years. I don't know how Wheezy did this. Others have suggested that it might involve NetworkManager - To set the WiFi password in the computer, you need to know another password, the one that has sufficient privilege to set the WiFi password. It will be password (2) or (3) (as described at the start of this message). --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk