help? - PCLinuxOS won't get online

[Julie]

I can _*NOT*_ get onto the internet at all with that computer. OK, here's the scoop:

I've been using PCLinuxOS 2007 on an old Compaq Presario 1800 for close to three years now. I've never used it in a wireless environment except the Library for meetings (and the last couple I attended I had to connect wired) until last night. I tried to use it at a restaurant near me that has an open wireless account in their network. Well, the PCLOS _refused_ to connect. I put DSL in running it live and it got onto the wireless connection just fine. However, its browser would not allow me onto the social networking site I needed to access (and could with the PCLOS from my wired system before this incident).

So I kept trying to get the PCLOS to connect to that wireless network. I changed some settings in different places in the PCLOS Control Center>Network & Internet in numerous efforts to get the thing to connect to the wireless host at the restaurant. As a result, now, when it boots up in "Verbose Mode" (hardwired to my wired router) it tells me that "orinoco_cs device eth1 does not seem to be present, dlaing initialization" ...yada, yada. 

I've gone back to where I was messing in while trying to connect wirelessly and tried to reset the thing back but all it does is tell me to "Please Wait...Applying the configuration" in one box while in another separate box it is telling me to "Please wait. Downloading and Installing packages" which it can NOT do and then because it can't I get an Error Message that says "Could not install the dhcpcd package". I get the same thing no matter what I do. If I so much as click the mouse while this is going on the thing freezes solid and I have to Restart the computer. This is a vicious circle! So far as long as I don't try to get online with the thing it seems to do fine.

Is there anything I can try before the next meeting to get this system back on the internet without having to do a whole OS re-install? Or should I just pack it up and bring it down there without "tinkering" any more than I have? OR should I just cowboy up, wipe the drive and start over again?

As usual, any and all help any of you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Julie



      
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