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I am very new to Ubuntu and I love it dearly, however recently I had an error pop up which said:

'E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/in.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise-updates_multiverse_binary-i386_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'

A few weeks later I lost my wi-fi connection.

I ended up purging software manager and this message disappeared but without network manager everything went down hill. I can't reinstall it as I have no internet connection on my lap top. Also another error appeared in its place it is a red triangle with an exclamation mark.

Now also an error returned "waiting for network configuration, which causes a very slow boot.

I have tried all sorts of commands and nothing works, I have been researching all these problems for a week and trying different things, making the problem larger than I started with. Network manager comes back with all sorts of massages, like access denied. I am freaking out that I completely stuffed the system up. I have copies of all the commands I have tried and the responses from the terminal.

Would anyone be willing to help me please?

sandra
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1 Answers1

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The wireless device 3945ABG has a driver and firmware that are built-in to all recent Ubuntu versions. Confirm that the hardware met the driver and created a wireless interface, ideally wlan0:

iwconfig

Also confirm that Network Manager is not running suggesting that you actually only deleted the desktop icon:

ps aux | grep -i network

If you see an entry for 'network-manager' then only the icon is missing; try to restore it temporarily with:

nm-applet &

If Network Manager doesn't appear as a running process, then do:

gksudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

If gksudo isn't installed and, obviously, you have no way to get it easily, use 'sudo' instead. Amend the file that opens to something like this:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid <your_network>
wpa-psk <your_wpa_password>

Proofread carefully, save and close gedit. Reboot. Are you connected? Check:

 ping -c3 www.google.com

If you get ping returns, you are connected. If this is a stay-at-home computer that doesn't need to connect to different networks at the cyber cafe, you really needn't reinstall Network Manager. If you do need it, reinstall:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall network-manager

Then edit /etc/network/interfaces as above and delete the wlan0 stanza.

If you are having trouble, look for clues:

sudo ifdown wlan0 && sudo ifup -vv wlan0

'-vv' will produce output that will help us see what or where it's not connecting.

chili555
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