I am trying to install Linux Mint's Cinnamon 64 bit version, but I have come to the conclusion that it must not ship with something that the 32 bit version does. None of my networking really works in the 64 bit version, it attempts to connect and fails. I'd suspect it's a driver issue, but I have no clue where to start. I currently have the 32 bit version on the computer and the 64 bit on a live drive, so I can swap between to answer any questions about either installation. Any help would be nice, thanks.

More information will be needed for anyone to help. Please at minimum report your NIC brands and models. (The computer brand/model may also help; is it a desktop or notebook?) Is the NIC replaceable? Could you add a second, more industry standard, NIC card? (e.g. Intel 1000)

The following commands may assist:

MotherBoard - Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3

I have a wifi card, but I really just want the wired connection to work.

The first code yeilded:
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8161/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)
06:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR93xx Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

Second:

*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 06
serial: 74:d4:35:9f:1f:8f
size: 100Mbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8168e-3_0.0.4 03/27/12 ip=192.168.254.2 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
resources: irq:74 ioport:b000(size=256) memory:fe200000-fe200fff memory:da100000-da103fff
*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: AR93xx Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:06:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 01
serial: 6c:19:8f:00:12:16
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.13.0-37-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
resources: irq:18 memory:fe100000-fe11ffff memory:fe120000-fe12ffff

Third:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 74:d4:35:9f:1f:8f
inet addr:192.168.254.2 Bcast:192.168.254.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::76d4:35ff:fe9f:1f8f/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1519874 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:914397 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2161754431 (2.1 GB) TX bytes:74558606 (74.5 MB)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:12383 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:12383 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1264299 (1.2 MB) TX bytes:1264299 (1.2 MB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 6c:19:8f:00:12:16
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

Maybe someone else will chime in, but as a start...


I noticed your wired connection has a successful IP address (192.168.254.2), so you may want to ping your gateway (router).

If it successfully pings then, it you may just have a DNS issue. Verify you have nameservers listed by:
However, it could be a firmware issue, on your 64 bit, confirm the following are installed: (you may want to reboot if it results as NEW installs)
and possibly (you may or may not need or want some of these / your discretion)

and i also noticed the following; check this output for consideration:

I had a connection because I have my phone tethered, sorry if that caused confusion...
I can't get those packages to register as existing, are you sure those are the names? or am I doing something dumb?
I have the r8169-dkms driver installed.

I wish i had a definitive answer for you. I'm running Debian Jessie, those packages are copy/pasted from my system.

Was r8168-dkms installed since the beginning or did you install it? I don't know your level of experience so i don't know how basic i should be.

Since you can get tethered, are you running "sudo apt-get update" to refresh the repo-information?

If r8168-dkms was always installed, check your 32 bit version and see if it was also installed. I suspect r8168-dkms should not be installed, and that both "firmware-realtek" and "firmware-atheros" should be used for your two NICs.

You can see details of those packages which seem to list your devices:
It's lucky that you can tether. If you can afford, try a full upgrade:
You may also want to see what firmware is installed on your 32bit and replicate such: On your 32bit do:
another way to do the exact same thing is:
With the second way, maybe you could grep for other things, or not grep at all just to peruse.

Maybe a quicker way would be to on both distros & see if you have the same firmwares available.

I just performed a full upgrade, but I'm pretty sure it did nothing. (for the connection I mean)
Anything on the computer either shipped or was updated.

Output of ls /lib/firmware:
64 32

Ok.. As if this weren't confusing enough, turns out, after hours of being online via tether the computer manages to magically gain use of the ethernet and is working without a tether right now... I am thoroughly confused.