Windows has been a pain, so I installed Ubuntu 13.10 on my parent's HP Pavilion first with Cinnamon. For the first few days, it worked wonderfully, and then stopped connecting to the internet. I tried using the windows partition and it worked fine. Posted a question about this - no answer yet.

Since then, something happened while my parents were using it. The Windows partition was completely erased. I reinstalled Ubuntu and the Cinnamon desktop. Worked great for a day, then same connectivity issue.

Since Ubuntu works fine on my netbook without Cinnamon, I thought perhaps this was a Cinnamon issue. Removed Cinnamon and installed LXDE. LXDE, much like Cinnamon, worked well. Then I rebooted and couldn't connect to the internet. I encountered the same issue when using KDE.

I would personally like something with a bottom panel as my parents are familiar and comfortable with Windows and can barely use their cell - phones so I do not think Unity will work too well for them. Ubuntu with Unity seems to be the only way to access the internet. My parents mostly use the internet to check email/facebook/watch video. Anyone know how to fix this?