I installed a minimal CentOS 8 directly onto my laptop hard drive with nothing else on it. I then started following this guide but it already assumes that you have a network connection. I then tried this but when when I go to "edit connections", nothing is there. I have a few months experience with different distros for college classes, but it was usually with a GUI and some terminal, and I could usually find the perfect article to walk me through it.

Network Manager service is active(running) and the loopback and wifi device say unmanaged. Please let me know if you can help, I really appreciate it. I have tried googling the answer, but I don't really know which site is correct with what I'm asking because one site says change some configuring files and another says download drivers.

The main issue with wifi is having a driver AND the firmware for the device. Beyond that use ip/iw or ifconfig/iwconfig and wpa_supplicant or whatever else applies. Note that a lot of extras are NOT installed by default on a minimal install. You could wifi bridge over ethernet through another device. Since ethernet devices are more likely to work out of the box.

1 members found this post helpful.

Do you know if your wifi card is detected and has the proper driver installed?
Does "ip addr" show anything other then the lo interface?
Network Manager can be run from the command line, but it is not easy. May want to replace it with wicd-cli is you are not going to use a gui.
If you have a wired connection, use that until you get the wifi working.

1 members found this post helpful.

Would it be easier for me to go somewhere with an ethernet cable, install the drivers and firmware(and find out what those are) I need for wifi, then test it out? At this point ifconfig isn't pre installed but ip addr seems to be. Or maybe I should try reinstalling with network tools selected?

1: <loopback info>
2: wlp3s0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether 7c:5c:f8:d6:ae:52 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

network manager seems to be online using "systemctl status NetworkManager.service" command. I don't have a wired connection at home, I thought I was going to be a boss and configure a wireless connection on a minimal install without it being necessary but turns out I was wrong. I can get one at school though. I also don't think I can replace Network Manager just yet until I get a connection right? If wired is best, I may have to complete my project Friday.

check if you have nmtui, may be able to configure wifi from there, but all the examples I see only mention wired connections.
Not sure if that is in a minimal install.

1 members found this post helpful.

Yea I tried nmtui, nothing shows up when I went to edit connections.

Update: I reinstalled and chose the server option, the connection shows up in nmtui, but not in ifconfig or ip addr. I can edit the connection in nmtui but I can't activate it.

The minimal does not automatically configure networking wired or wireless. Version 7 has nmtui which is a ncurses menu based network manager configuration tool but have not tried version 8 yet so don't know if is still installed by default.

As posted if your wireless adapter is not recognized out of the box then some additional work is required. You could try a net install version instead which would automatically setup networking. You don't have to install the desktop and might be easier if the wireless device is recognized.

I reinstalled it, CentOS 8 does come with nmtui with the minimal install and it is now showing up when I go to "Edit a Connection" but it is not showing up under "activate a connection" and ip addr is pretty much showing the same thing it showed earlier up in the thread. I don't mind manually configuring it, I just have to learn how by doing some more research. Also I didn't do net install because I've always just installed from USB but I'm not against trying. From what I see online I can use the same USB and just pick the installation source as a certain http site correct?

That is correct.

1 members found this post helpful.

I assume that 8 is similar to 7
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tec...-installation/

1 members found this post helpful.

I got everything to work thanks to you guys, I used the netinstall method, but I think that last post could have worked, my friends just used the GUI :P. I love everybody

Some drivers have quirks. My rtl8723be has 2 antennae, but physically only 1 is attached. And ofc, by default the wrong one is selected by default by the driver. So working driver, but no signal with the weakest of 2 antennae. But the wifi module/driver has an option to select a specific antennae. Which makes things right, just not out of the box. Usable for those in the know and with basic CLI / root skillz. But not a good user experience for noobs IMO. Then again a $300 OTS laptop at office depot that came with windows installed.