I run mint 7 and had to change desktops from GDE to KDE, and it fixed my initial minimizing problem, but now I cannot connect to the internet, and when I go into my network settings I see no networks listed to be able to edit them!

I use a wireless satellite thingy to pick up the free wifis near me, and I know the satellite thing works for sure, and There is no way to edit network connections if none are shown, And yes I have restarted and shutdown many times!

Please post the output of
ifconfig

If you see something that looks like a wireless interface, example: wlan0, type
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up and try again.

Also keep in mind my USB keyboard and mouse work but no flash drives video cameras and maybe my "hi-gain usb wirelss-g adapter", but it does light up???
says Nautilus finds no path to the flash drives etc!

eth0 Link :encap :ETHERNET HWaddr 00:1d:92:60 :51 :al
UP Broadcast MULTICAST MTU :1500 Metric:1
RX Packets :0 errors (000 on the rest)


lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet address 127.0.0.1 Mask 255.0.0.0
inet6 address : ::1/128 Scope Host
UP LOOPBACKRUNNING MTU:16436 Metric 1
(RX and TX 44 errors o on the rest)

wlan0 Link encap Ethernet HWaddr 00:0e:3ble:36:83
inet address fe 80: :2oe:3bff:fele 3b83/64 Scope:Link
UpBROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
(RX packets oo on all)

wmaster Link encap UPVSPECHWaddr 00-0E-3B-IE-3B-83-62-38-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
up BROADCASTINGRUNNING MULTICAST mtu:1500 Metric 1
(RX Packets etc all zeros)

please help

That's a good start. It shows that your wireless interface is up.

Now type sudo ifconfig wlan0 up. Your wireless light should glow. If it doesn't glow, press the wireless button, and execute the command again. If you cannot see the light glow no matter what you do, post the output of dmesg|tail

If the light does glow, type sudo iwlist wlan0 scan. sudo is necessary. If you can see scans, then we can move to the next step.

Your flash drive issue might be a permission problem, please start a separate thread for a separate issue. We'll concentrate on the wireless issue here alright?

I will try when I get home so let me get this right login sudo su in terminal then simply type "ifconfig wlan0 up" also my wireless adapter light is already on, but I see nothing on desktop to see connections, but I will try and respond later!
Thanks!

If your adapter light is already on that shows that the firmware of the device is already installed. All you need to do now is:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo iwlist wlan0 scan

I did this and it listed the one wifi essid address I normally use, but I still can't connect to internet or ping anything!

Very good! Is this an encrypted or an unencrpyted connection? If it's not encrypted omit the key in the following command

sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid <ESSID> key <KEY>
sudo dhcpcd wlan0

If both the above steps work, try connecting. If the internet does not work post the output of 'route' (do this only if the above commands are successful).

okay, there is no key
the second command you posted gave "command not found"
??????????????????

Also noticed tried running a dhcp command and gave error that dhcp was not installed but obviously i cant apt-get it because of no internet connection, anyways I guess I will just go purchase a external drive back up everything then reload everything unless someone can figure it out, but I very much appreciate your help

If dhcpcd wasn't there, you should have never been able to connect. Execute "whereis dhcpcd"
Also type "whereis wicd"

Re-installing the same distro most probably won't solve your problem.

If wicd is not there, just download it from some other computer and install it.
http://wicd.sourceforge.net/

thanks for all your help but I just wiped and reloaded and now I have no problems, Something just happened when I switched from Gnome to KDE??