No network OOB, can't update anything

[robust bear]

First time user of Linux, already failed miserably with Banzzite earlier this evening.

I installed Mint following the guide from the website, however, now that the install has been completed I try to follow the guided tour. The network is disabled since the network manager is not running. However, I cannot turn on the network manager since it is not installed.

Trying to update the update manager (install medium is plugged in) does not work.

I appreciate your help.

[main yarrow]

Are you on the laptop?

[robust bear]

No, I'm on a Desktop with a wired connection.

[dusky zenith]

do you see in the tray an icon with opposing arrows?

that's the network traffic/manager

[robust bear]

Yes, it is greyed out an has an X on it

[dusky zenith]

replug cable at both ends first

and fully

[main yarrow]

If you go to the settings - network, can you take a photo of that window and post it here?

[dusky zenith]

also, is the ethernet connected to a router LAN port, or is it straight to a DSL/CABLE modem?

[robust bear]

Done, no changes so far

[dusky zenith]

see if the Network Interface card (NIC) even has a driver running and applied. in terminal do an inxi -SMNxx and check , and / or post results.

[robust bear]

Straight to the modem. The connection itself has been working the whole time, only after installing Mint there are problems. The connection is stable both with another PC and my cell phone over WiFi.

[dusky zenith]

is it a combination modem/router or JUST modem? list its exact model and brand if ur not sure.

and show the inxi, please

[main yarrow]

And the result of

systemctl status NetworkManager

command please

[robust bear]

It's both, it's a AVM box of some sort. Since the connection is working properly on other machines and has been working on this machine until the install of Mint I'm fairly confident I'm looking at a local software issue.

[dusky zenith]

are there multiple LAN ports of the same shape on it? (like 3 or 4 yellow ones) ?

[dusky zenith]

cuz that would signify it is indeed a modem/router combo

inactive dead.. hmmm

[main yarrow]

Can you maximize the window and repeat the command so that we can see the whole text

[robust bear]

It is a combo, I'm sure of it, I was able to use it properly for the last 2,5 years without any problems. Right now there is another computer plugged into a different LAN port and my cell phone connected over WiFi, both have no problems. The machine I'm working on right now has been working fine the whole day until I installed Mint. Since Mint is giving me an error that network manager does not work, I'm sure that there is no hardware issue.

[dusky zenith]

yeah seems Network Manager "inactive" is the issue

[dusky zenith]

it could be that the driver shown is the incorrect one

it shows it has WiFi built-in. Can you launch NETWORK from the menu: Preferences, or via System Settings, and see

[main yarrow]

Ok, and result of the

journalctl -b -u NetworkManager

command please

[robust bear]

The main board has WiFi capabilities in theory, however, I did not install the antennas and never used it before

[dusky zenith]

ah ok

[main yarrow]

@dusky zenith I think we need to dig in the direction why network manager failed to start

[dusky zenith]

agreed

def. after seeing the last pic

*2nd last pic

[robust bear]

Should I simply try a reboot and hope for a miracle? Can I open the guided tour again?

[dusky zenith]

I wonder if u could bluetooth-tether a smartphone for connection share

then u could run an update

[main yarrow]

Yeah, you can

[robust bear]

Okay, I'll try a reboot first, BT tether second

[dusky zenith]

usb wont work likely, since it still assigns a pseudo ethernet connection

[main yarrow]

After a reboot, if it doesn't work, photo the results of

journalctl -b -u NetworkManager
and
systemctl list-dependencies NetworkManager

again

[dusky zenith]

the mobo is march 2024. may be not fully supported in the Mint 22 series yet or OOTB

i wonder if that dependency fail is hw or sw related

[robust bear]

Is it normal for Linux to have such a long boot process? This is quite a potent machine and Windows used to be up and running in <30 secs, is this to be expected?

[main yarrow]

If you have ssd it should boot in 30 or so secs

you can check boot time with

systemd-analyze

[robust bear]

Yeah, it's on a SSD, took almost three minutes. Now I'm on the desktop and can't move the cursor, system appears to be frozen. Is there an Crtl+Alt+Del equivalent on Linux?

[dusky zenith]

typical Mint-only boot is 10 seconds on SATA SSD

[dusky zenith]

ctrl-alt-backspace

[robust bear]

Doesn't do anything, I'll do a hard reset.

[main yarrow]

Long boot times on SSD often caused by timeouts, which means some hardware fails to detect

[robust bear]

Okay it appears that the boot process takes forever since the system fails to load the network managers

[main yarrow]

If you have some external devices connected other than mouse and keyboard, try disconnecting them and see if that helps

[robust bear]

Also the soundcard does not work, but I somehow expected that.

[main yarrow]

Also, did you test network and sound in live mode before installing?

[robust bear]

Hey it works now!

[main yarrow]

what works now?

[robust bear]

I'm able to update, connection is working

[main yarrow]

Ok.... then run an update

[robust bear]

Firefox works, connection is a go

[main yarrow]

Did you disconnect something?

[robust bear]

Yes, my HOTAS joystick, but that thing is pretty much as dumb as they get

[main yarrow]

Well, run the update and restart, we'll see how it goes after

[robust bear]

Okay, restarting now

I'm getting lots of errors when starting, some Bluetooth service failed, network manager seems unhappy, watchdog timed out, can I access these logs in the system?

[main yarrow]

Yes.

journalctl -b -p3

[robust bear]

This goes on for quite a while

[main yarrow]

Does your internet work now?

[robust bear]

Yes, it does, thank you very much

[main yarrow]

You can install Discord from software manager, run the command

journalctl -b -p3 > journal.txt

and copy the file from your home folder here

Also, check driver manager

[robust bear]

Are there multiple software managers? None of these seem right

[main yarrow]

Hmm.... there should be one with discord logo.

click on the 3 lines (hamburger menu) and click refresh package information and try again

[robust bear]

That worked, thanks

[robust bear]

This doesn't really give me anything, should there be a file created somewhere?

[main yarrow]

In your home folder there should be a journal.txt file now

[robust bear]

There sure is, thanks

[main yarrow]

that's a lot

[robust bear]

Is there some kind of repair tool for Mint?

[dusky zenith]

i think based on ur hardware, u ought to use a more cutting edge distro for it. perhaps fedora kde spin, or endeavour OS, or even openSUSE tumbleweed kde

nobara also

[robust bear]

Sure, I'll take whatever, the main reason I tried Mint is that it was rumored to support my Soundblaster AE 7 soundcard

[main yarrow]

Just to check, can you run

sudo apt install -f

and see if it gives you anything?

[dusky zenith]

if u have a usb stick around 32 GB or more, n fast internet, u can prep it with ventoy (use GPT in its option menu) then u can add all of the above to that one stick after prepping. (simply copy/paste) and try them all

[main yarrow]

@dusky zenith Maybe his hardware is too new for kernel 6.8? he could install mainline and try newer kernel

[robust bear]

eading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

[main yarrow]

Ok.... and

inxi -Fz

please

[dusky zenith]

lmao graphics all N/A

[robust bear]

well, I didn't install any driver yet

which one do I use, RHEL, Ubuntu or SLED SLES ? Those are the ones from the official AMD website

[dusky zenith]

ubuntu,

though with a more advanced kernel, u wouldnt have to do that

it'd be set up already for AMD

[dusky zenith]

as per ^ (http://www.kernel.org)

[robust bear]

Jesus fucking Christ, now I know what my mother feels like when I talk to her about computers...

[dusky zenith]

or if that's too much work, then try those 4 or 5 other distros.

middle one seems fine

[main yarrow]

I would just try a newer kernel first

[robust bear]

Okay, so my goal for tonight was to join teamspeak, talk to my friends and play ANY game with them. This was almost seven hours ago. What ride...

[robust bear]

Meaning I would have to install a different distro?

[main yarrow]

No, let me search a few things

[dusky zenith]

not necessarily, the link i posted has mainline stuff. but takes some work to get it

[main yarrow]

Ok, to install mainline run these commands in order

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cappelikan/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install mainline

[robust bear]

Okay, I think I did it

[main yarrow]

After that you should find mainline in the menu, open it and after it loads install a newer kernel, 6.12 for example

[robust bear]

Which menu?

[dusky zenith]

start

[main yarrow]

The start menu, mint menu

[robust bear]

I found an application called "mainline Kernels"?

[main yarrow]

yeah

[robust bear]

Okay, install the latest one I guess?

[main yarrow]

6.12

[robust bear]

If I understand correctly, I'm now upgrading my kernel?

Okay, it says "done", reboot?

[main yarrow]

More like installing alongside the current one

After it's done, reboot and hold down left shift, you'll get to the menu, in the menu choose advanced options and choose kernel 6.12 (not the recovery one)

[robust bear]

Okay, see you on the other side (or more likely the cell phone again)

[main yarrow]

It should load ok

[dusky zenith]

I think it will auto choose the latest version at boot time anyway

see if u turn secure boot off

that darn shim thing

[main yarrow]

Maybe it'll even work better on 6.8 without secure boot )

[robust bear]

Disabling secure boot did the trick, it's loading now, boot time does not seem to improve though.

[main yarrow]

After it boots, do

Inxi -Fz

again

[robust bear]

Will do, but what does this command do? I'd really like to learn some stuff, I've been using Linux for less then a working day and I'm already knee deep in support stuff without knowing what is going on

[main yarrow]

Inxi is the system and hardware info command
F means give full info (all categories)
z means hide some sensitive info like serial numbers

[dusky zenith]

-F FULL INFO

-b basic full info

Fxxx extreme full info

[main yarrow]

Did you build the pc yourself?

[robust bear]

The system is back, but the network manager is gone again -.-

[robust bear]

Yes, I did. It has been running fine with win10 for the last year

[main yarrow]

capital F

[dusky zenith]

is windows fully wiped from this machine?

[robust bear]

No, Windows lives on C:, Linux is on D:. There are still some remains of my Bazzite attempts on F:, which is physically located on C:

[main yarrow]

Well, I'm stumped..... Maybe he needs to update bios \uefi it says here his is from 03.27.2024 and the latest seem to be from 01.08.2025

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B650-GAMING-PLUS-WIFI/support

[dusky zenith]

log back into windows. turn off fast startup in it

that could be blocking the amd driver

see #1193345280733622272 message

[robust bear]

Okay, I will try this, but for tonight my Linux experiment has been concluded. I expected the switch to be some kind of a hassle, but not this.

[dusky zenith]

additonally, the bios may have gotten tainted by a windows firmware update. u can try to put new bios for ur mobo on it. see mfg. website

[robust bear]

I really thank you guys for your support, but I'm heading to bed. I will reply under this conversation tomorrow, when I have some new insights. Thanks a lot, you have been by far the most helpful and positive side of the Linux community, there have been some other experiences on my side.

Thanks again, talk to you soon