Howdy and Welcome greg. As far as getting you onboard network gear working. Is it turned on in Bios?
Also. Sometimes you just got to bite the bullet and spend a few bucks to make up for lack of skill .
It is just cheaper in the long wrong to fix something in 5 minutes vs 5 days . Even if the cost is a six pack of beer.
Just the way I roll. That is all I am gonna say about that.
If the hardware is enabled in bios.
What is the output of this. So we know if you are 32bit or 64 bit.
uname -m
nexit. The all network hardware readouts from
lspci -v
mine for example
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82577LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 05)
Subsystem: Dell Device 0410
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 25
Memory at f5400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]
Memory at f5480000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
I/O ports at 6040 [size=32]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: e1000e
Kernel modules: e1000e
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6200 (rev 35)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6200 2x2 AGN
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 27
Memory at f2c00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
Kernel modules: iwlwifi
Check out your manual while you are learning this stuff also. It is in the menu. Good Luck.