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Hi, so basically, I have an HP-Pavillion G6 laptop. The wireless connection does not work for linux but works in windows. (i've tried both mint, gentoo, and ubuntu). However, for the *nix OS, I can connect to the internet with a wired connection so it's not the internet card. When typing iwconfig, there IS a wlan0. So I don't think it is a driver problem.

This is the error message I get when trying to start networking:
--------------------------------------…
Could not set interface wlan0 flags: no such file or directory
Failed to initialize driver interface
* start-stop-daemon: failed to start `/usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant'
*ERROR: net.wlan0 failed to start
--------------------------------------…

iwconfig returns this:
--------------------------------------…
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key: off
Power Management: off
--------------------------------------…

Any ideas?

This makes me think that it's a wireless driver (called kernel modules in linux) issue...

Could not set interface wlan0 flags: no such file or directory
Failed to initialize driver interface

In linux, not all wireless driver kernel modules work with the devices they are "supposed" to work with. In the past when I ran ubuntu 10.04 and older versions of debian, I had to blacklist the rt73 and rt73usb kernel modules in order for the one I had to compile to get it to work.

So what do you do about the problem? Well the obvious solution is to install the correct kernel module. Open a terminal session and type lsusb | less (I think lspci might work for embedded laptop chipsets) and press the page up and down keys to navigate though the pager. You need to find out what your chipset version is. When you find the chipset google "x driver linux" where x is the chipset you are using.

You may have to black list some already loaded modules to get it to work. For debian based systems (may work on others, but I haven't tried it) you add the line "blacklist drivername" to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file. You need super user permissions to open the file and write to it.

If that doesn't work, then you can use the long forgotten ndiswrapper. It's a kernel module system that wraps around a windows driver. If you NEED to use this, then google ndiswrapper card list and find which windows driver works best for your card. Download that driver and do this...

ndiswrapper -i /path/to/driverfile.inf
ndiswrapper -l (is the card loaded? if not there is a problem with the driver)
ndiswrapper -m
modeprobe ndiswrapper

You need to put these commands into a terminal session with SUPER user privileges.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE!

go to Addition Drivers in the Ubuntu "control panel"
and if it finds any install them with wired internet i think that should HOPEFULLY fix it
if not you need the "windows wireless drivers" its avaliable in linux mint but ubuntu doesn't have it preinstalled i think its called NDIS n d i s wrapper and i like linux mint SO much better
it has so many more features like NDIS wrapper PRE installed !!!!!!!!!!! so if you haven't tried that in mint already please do so

iwconfig does nothing for you unless you have searched to locate a wireless connection, then entered the key for it. You are probably better off with open suse Linux, which incorporates a proper wireless configuration system in its' admin program Yast. Plus various user controlled network connection tools.

It means that linux is not configured properly for your laptop, Linux is not for someone that has no experiance. I recently had the same problem I just lucked out and got it fixed.Have fun.

run a "sudo lshw -short" and message me the results.

Identifying the hardware is the first step in this process, no use going any further if you haven't.