Ethernet not working after update from17.3 to 18.1

General Help
1

I crossed my fingers and crossed my toes and did the upgrade to 18.1 today. So far the only thing that doesn't appear to be working is my ethernet connection (Realtek card). I was thinking I needed to add the driver but I can't seem to find where 18.1 has hidden the "additional drivers" tab. Help please!

2

You can find Additional Drivers in its own tab in Software & Updates

Check which card you have:

sudo lshw -C network

3

Found the tab right before you replied but it says no additional drivers available.

Here's the output for the ethernet connectoion. The Wifi is working fine.
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
logical name: enp1s0
version: 16
serial: c0:18:03:bf:a3:f5
size: 1Gbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8168 driverversion=8.052.01 duplex=full latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=1Gbit/s
resources: irq:0 ioport:4000(size=256) memory:a0604000-a0604fff memory:a0600000-a0603fff

I know I had a similar issue when I first installed 17.3 and I think I had to find and install the second to newest driver from somewhere on line. I also had to revert to 6.8 kernel for some reason but I've gone with the newest kernel in 18.1 this time.

4

That the new kernel is on there with the driver you installed may be the issue. Have you tried booting on the 6.8 kernel from the Grub Menu?

5

No but I'll try that now.

6

Going back to 6.8 got it working. Am I missing out on anything important by staying with such an old kernel now I have upgraded?

7

No, the kernel is a primary driver for your hardware. Since your hardware is matched to your kernel, you are fine.
If you had new hardware for which new drivers were needed, that are only in a later kernel - then it would be an issue.

8

Thanks. I marked 6.8 as the solution. I now need to explore 18.1 a bit.