Hello again, just checking in. I'm using the wireless option you've suggested and it works. It's more of a security issue versus latency. I'm all about security these days. It urks me that I've finally decided to get away from the Win monster and committed to Zorin exclusively, now I can't use ethernet. Just sucks. I may commit to another Linux distro rather than back to Windorks. Guess I'll try another distro. Oh well. Now I know I'll never go back to win. So..any suggestions on another distro?
Another option may be an Ethernet adapter that is Linux Compatible since yours seems to balk at every repair attempt.
That depends if You want stay on a Debian/Ubuntu Base or not. And if You prefer a LTS Distro or not. I would say try Linux Mint (is a good Try everytime) which is a LTS Distro with Ubuntu 24.04 Base. Fedora would be worth a Try because of Your relatively new Mainboard because it is nt a LTS Distro. It is more up-to-date. Not directly on the Bleeding Edge; a bit behind which make it more stable.
I would suggest installing Gnome Boxes which makes it easy to try out other distros before committing to a full install. Mint is popular but not everyone is a fan of it. Before I moved to Zorin I was on Pop!_OS for over a year (my first full time distro coming from Windows). Before doing another clean install I checked out a number of other distros and thought I would end up with a KDE distro but ended up loving Zorin so here I am.
I did this as my previous machine (using an x670 motherboard) had problems with the onboard ethernet cutting out. It would start functional, then die 5 minutes to hours later. If you're open to going this route, the adapter I got, which worked great for me on Zorin, is an ASUS USB-C2500. For use with Linux, no driver installation or configuration was necessary. The only reason I'm not still using it is that I got a new computer in February that had no ethernet issue.
My ethernet used to cut out frequently, but after an update a few days ago it seems to have stopped working altogether. My MB is an old B550, but it uses the Realtek 8125 ethernet controller (version 04), and apparently the X870 also uses that controller, but version 0c. Doing some digging it looks like there've been some recent-ish issues with the 8169 driver on the 8125 controller on Linux. I think manually installing the 8125 driver has worked for some, but I don't really want the hassle of having to reinstall it every time the kernel version changes (because that's apparently necessary). Any idea if there's a more permanent solution? Think this is likely to be fixed at some point?
The B550 is hardly new hardware, I got this motherboard like 4 years ago.
Secure Boot likely interferes with these drivers and should be disabled in BIOS Settings.
The .deb package for the driver - which includes DKMS so you do not need to reinstall the driver after kernel upgrades:
wget https://github.com/awesometic/realtek-r8125-dkms/releases/download/9.015.00-1/realtek-r8125-dkms_9.015.00-1_amd64.deb
IF it conflicts with the inbuilt r8169 module:
echo "blacklist r8169" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-r8169.conf
sudo update-initramfs -u
Hello again. I'm still using wireless connection as I've almost given up completely. I would really like to use my ethernet connection as I don't like the security issues with wireless but nothing seems to work. Still here. Still monitoring. Thanks again all. 
I suspect there are only two real answers here: wait for a future release of Zorin that includes the drivers as standard, or switch to a different distro.
The other answers - install the drivers separately from a package or build from the source - seem to be hit or miss for different people. Certainly I've never got the ethernet driver to work for me despite trying different things. They worked briefly and then stopped after a reboot and that was it.
In any case, the server works fine with wireless and I can live with the lack of ethernet until the next update.
Thank you for your advice. I'm determined to find a way with ethernet. Wireless is simply unsafe.
I'm desperate to make use of my ethernet connection vs my wireless. I'd be willing to pay to have anybody walk me through installing the realtek drivers. I'd try another distro but seems like it's a Linux issue across at least several distros. So trying another distro isn't the answer either. I'm about ready to try ANY distro from ANY source so long as I can use ethernet. That's how bad I want to solve this. American cash?
Did you try to install kernel 6.13 or 6.14 that contains the driver? It is not so difficult.
If it doesn't work you can easily go back to the previous kernel.
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