Linux Mint 16 network problem and fix

When booting it tells me that it can't find the network and would time out, making for a long start up time.
The network itself worked fine once booted. Only the icon in the tray shows a broken connection.

The problem is in the etc/network/interfaces file. Open it as administrator
Delete or comment out everything except for

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

And save it back. Reboot
[hr]
I have had some flavour of Linux on this machine for many years, mostly because it is not Windows. I got interested in Linux because back when I was working, I had to maintain an AT&T 3B2 (15/20 years ago.)

But I am finding out now, the newer versions of any flavour of Linux always seem to have some kind of networking problem. Either when first installing or shortly thereafter, i.e., after the first reboot, or even sometimes after several weeks of working fine.
Networking with the original Vista this computer (Acer duel core Veriton) came with always work fine.

Now to figure out how to change from a British spell checker to an American one. The last time I loaded this OS on this machine, I had the American version.

I had Ubuntu 12.04 on this machine for a short while. There are no program menus. You were supposed to remember those funny named Linux programs and type them in. And that was by design? And that version was for people used to Windows? Sorry, that does not compute with me. My brain doesn't work that way either. Another reason I like Mint 16.
So I found and loaded a menu program on Ubuntu 12.4. It worked OK, but when I did, I lost my LAN connection. The Internet still worked, but I could not connect to any of my other computers. That was a deal breaker.