Networking Stopped Working

If you run :

ping -c 4 8.8.8.8

Do you get replies?

I am a noob. So, how do I run ping and see the results?

Press CTRL + ALT + T
Run the command there.

ping output is "connect: Network is unreachable."

Additional info:

When I click on the network icon on the top bar, the top line of the pop down menu is "No network devices available"

If you run :

sudo lshw -C network

Is it disabled? What Ethernet controller are you using? What driver module is it using?

Output is:
  *-network
     description: Network controller
     product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
     Broadcom Corporation
     physical id: 0
     bus info: pci@0000:0c:00.0
     version: 01
     width: 32 bits
     clock: 33MHz
     capabilities : pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
     configuration: driver=wl latency=0
     resources: irq:17 memory:efdfc000-efdfffff
  *-network UNCLAIMED
     description: Ethernet controller
     product: BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX
     Broadcom Corporation
     physical id: 0
     bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
     version: 02
     width: 32 bits
     clock: 33MHz
     capabilities : pm bus_master cap_list
     configuration: latency=64
     resources: memory:efdfe000-efdfffff

I found a post to a similar problem by Hadaka

These commands made the CAT5 ethernet work

sudo apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-bcm43.conf
sudo modprobe -rf wl

After a reboot, the CAT5 ethernet worked and I did

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer
sudo modprobe -rf b43
sudo modprobe b43

After a reboot, the popdown menu when I mouse over the network icon has a note that

Wi-Fi is disabled by a hardware switch

My laptop does not have such a switch. Will look in the bios settings.

If my system needs something other than b43, please let me know.

Changed the bios to ignore the hardware switch.

All is now working.

Is there a recommended linux book I should get?

Thanks for all of your support.