Comment 7 for bug 677701

*update*

Okay I think this may not really be a linux/debian/Ubuntu et al problem or bug. Regardless of the documented bug with network manager with Debain and therefore subsequent derivatives, there is an issue that is Windows 7 related that I think will clear up a lot of these issues. Now this may get rather verbose and long, but I did this so it can be understand by anyone even us noobs or at least semi noobs.

When you have a dual boot scenario with windows 7 or vista I believe ( not sure if vista is same never used it) Windows must be first as usual. So being first it would seem logical that most of us installed win7 then installed our various linux ditros accordingly after the win7 install and initial setup. I assume most of us (me especially) setup their win7 install and got it running and in particular got the networking all arranged so we would have internet right away. And in so doing most of us set up homegroup network to share files and data amongst other pc's on the same network/router connection. When we did that we set up the home network not just in the win7 environment but in the network itself. I cannot explain it properly in technical terms but the simple mans take on it would be win7 has to make changes in the router settings or somewhere non-OS dependent to allow the homegroup magic to happen unhindered and simply as possible for the average non tech home user. This started when we chose the name of our computer at installation/setup of windows 7.

More simply what ever name you gave your PC in windows 7 you must also use for your linux install if you use a dual boot scenario of any hardrive or partition scheme. I cannot explain the particulars as to why in a simple manner quick enough here, but doing this one thing fixed all of my networking problems in linux.

So in your windows 7 install if your PC's name is "Fred's PC" or whatever, you must name your PC in the linux install the exact same name. Do not confuse your PC's name with your login or admin names. Those are different. This was not the case in XP but if you have a working win7 install you have to make sure the PC names match for both linux and win7. No matter the dual boot scenario, they must match. If not your only other option would be to somehow get both your router/server/network to see your linux install as a different PC altogether and that seems a bit of a nuisance when this is such a simple thing to do.

Well I know this cured all of my network issues in linux right away. Running both Ubuntu 10.10 64 bit and Kubuntu 10.10 64 bit with out a single networking issue for two days now (knock on wood). And used a Puppy Linux Live CD to see if it worked there as well. Sure enough no connection until I set the PC name to the same as windows7 then Bingo! it worked.

Anyway thanks for reading I hope it helps someone.