Hi Chris,
I gave up using my Ubunto laptop because Libre Office Writer was
corrupted and I could not fix it. I am going into the hospital and need
it, so I thought I would try again. It booted into 14.4, but when I go
to the Ubuntu Software Center, it shows my programs, but does nothing.
The little fan gauge at the top shows that I am hoked to WiFi and have
an adequate signal.
The first thing that comes to my mind is whether packets are actually passing back and forth between your WiFi card and the Wireless Access Point even though you are presumably "hooked up to WiFi and have an adequate signal".
While of course Michael P and others can provide better advice here, why don't you check for effective WiFi functionality by running the console/terminal commands 'sudo ifconfig' and then 'sudo traceroute
www.actransit.org' from your Ubuntu laptop??
I'd think that performing these initial steps would narrow down one or more reasons that searching for "
yahoo.com" and
google.com" doesn't seem to work for you.
Another step you might try is to see whether the WiFi networks (SSID's) you are trying to connect to require that you first accept their Agreement terms starting page in your browser before you can continue.
Coffee shops such as Peets Coffee and hospitals such as San Francisco's UCSF and CPMC require that you first press the Acceptance button in your browser before you can connect to their SSID's, even after providing any necessary passwords.
Hope that this helps and especially that you speedily recover from whatever your'e going to the hospital for!