Cannot connect to (Wired) internet after installing Nvidia graphics card and driver.
 

Fresh install of Xubuntu and had been conncecting (wired) to internet fine for weeks, then I installed a Nvidia card and driver (wich works good) and now I cannot get on internet :(

I ran :

suco lshw -C network and I get a message saying UNCLAIMED and it shows the driver and version info.

I searched for UNCLAIMED linux network setting and didnt get much.

I disconnected the CAT5 cable And plugged it into another system and internet works fine.

I checked settings in network configuration and everything seems to be like it should

I am not sure why installing a graphics card would alter internet settings?

What else should I post or check into?

Thanks.

Absolutley nothing.

What is the status of your ethernet interface? Run the command ifconfig and or ip a and post the results. There should be an ip address present, and the interface should be up.

If your interface is named eth0, run the command ifconfig eth0 up will bring it up. You can look at the manpage for the ip command if you want to activate or deactivate the interface with that command.

I tried to bring up using ifconfig but I dont have ifconfig installed and "ip link set eth0 or eth1 up" says cannot find device.

From what I have researched it may be the driver for the network card (on motherboard) needs reinstalled.

There is also something called secure boot that "possibly" needs deactiveated in the bios ????

The network/internet was working fine for weeks, it was right after I installed the video card and driver that this happened.

How do I find out what driver I need to reinstall the network driver?

Thanks.

I have the same network card. Here is the output of inxi -n

Here is where the driver lives on my system.

It appears the driver is not loaded. Look in the output of the command lsmod, if its loaded, it will be listed there. If not, then as root try to modporbe r8169.ko.

No its not loaded

I guess after the last update a whole bunch of modules got whiped out. I dont have a network directory or a realtec directory at all under kernel 5.15.0-56-generic but when I look under /lib/modules/5.15.43-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/realtek/r8169.ko it is there. along with alot of other drivers.

Can I simply create the directories and copy over the driver to the newer kernel then reboot?

It looks like an upgrade? was done, is that correct?

When a new kernel is installed, you need the modules that match the kernel you are booting. The modules should be available from what ever program you use to update the system. Once installed, the boot loader needs updating to point to the new kernel.

Can you tell us exactly what has gone on with your system?

One thing to try, which may help to install the missing packages etc., is to select more options in the GRUB screen and select a previous kernel - sorry not at home to find the exact wording but something like more Xubuntu options then select the 5.13 kernel (do not select any safe mode or anything like that) then you may have network connectivity with the old kernel so you can make sure the drivers are installed for the newer kernel.

Its a HP I3 processor, 8 gigs of ram and a new 2TB HD, I just installed Xubuntu a few weeks ago and it was working fine. The only things I did was upgrade normally through the ubuntu sofware center and I installed Nvidia driver and graphics card. I didnt try to install a new kernel or at least not knowlingly.

This is what I was going to try but not sure if that is a permanent solution.

It's not a permanent solution, no, but will let you install the missing drivers for your network card for the newer kernel.
My theory is that the drivers were installed manually, somehow, for the 13 kernel and it didn't, update with the kernel so you just need to find the generic driver package name and install that so it install each time the kernel is updated.

If this is accurate, you do not have a match between booting kernel and modules. They won't work. I have no idea how you made this mis-match, I guess you don't either.

I would stronly suggest you look at what kernels you have in /boot and what is in /boot/efi/EFI/yourbootdir. It looks like 5.15.43 kernel never got copied to the bootdir, or your boot loader did not get updated.

I am going to give this a try and/or purchase a WIFI adapter and install that. I did that with this system and it worked really well.

I am not sure what to look for in /boot but I see a folder with initrd-5.15.0-43-generic and another initrd.img-5.15.0-56-generic

and files that say system map and config files with the same kernel names as above.

I cannot access efi directories at all even with sudo, and there is only one user on the system.

Try this:

1. Run 'uname -r' and look for your kernel version.
2. run 'du -sh /lib/modules/*' and check for modules of the same version. On a distro, there's usually 50 megs or so per kernel version.

For kernels/initrds, You only need to pay attention to the EFI stuff. If you start by removing unwanted crud, that helps.

I'm glad you can now boot, and your ethernet is now connected. That is progress.

Generally speaking, you should update to newer kernels, they often include security fixes and support for more features.

I am not familiar how you update a Xubuntu system. I think you have a tool to do that. You could look at the support doc from Ubuntu to see how they recommend updating kernels. Basically, its a mater up installing the correct packages, and updateing your boot loader. ( grub ).