Stuck with Software Rendering and no network

General Help
1

Hoping this is an easy one, but I haven't been able to figure it out on my own:

I installed Zorin 18.1 on my decade-old windows 7 PC a few weeks ago. But after I pressed the physical reset button on my computer when it hung during a restart, I only get 640x480 resolution and no network connectivity. I can't change the resolution, and the Hardware Information reports "Software rendering" under Graphics. I have an Nvidia Geforce GTX 1070 graphics card that worked well before this fateful reset, using the suggested 535 "proprietary, tested" driver.

Changing to the default xorg whatsitsname driver didn't help, and changing back (or reinstalling drivers) doesn't seem to be possible when I have no network. (The network works fine with other computers, or when I boot with my Zorin installation USB stick.)

I have muddled through most of the options in the press-Esc-during-boot thingy, but nothing makes any difference. It appears like the system is stuck in some kind of safe mode, but I can't figure out how to escape from it. Can anybody help? I can always re-install the whole thing, but after spending two weeks getting Steam, Lotro and MuseScore to (sort of) work, that's not very tempting.

2

What did You do before that happened?

3

Two suggestions that you may have already tried but putting them out anyway:

Check for additional drivers (settings/system/software updates then wait for the search for updates to complete and click the little cog wheel then the additional drivers tab), I'm wondering if you lost your graphics driver and your ethernet card driver.

Second, can you use the Zorin Advanced Options choice under the grub menu and try an older kernel? There has been discussion about some kernel updates creating problems, though I thought that was supposed to have been fixed.

4

I was restarting the computer for some reason I can't remember (possibly because I was experimenting with the reliability of various methods for launching a steam game), and it didn't restart as smoothly as usual. There were some letters on the screen; looking back, I guess it was trying to stop some unresponsive services or something like that. I got impatient, and used the physical reset button.

5

Thanks, but without network, the software updates and driver selection tab doesn't work. I have tried at least one older kernel, but it didn't make any difference. Guess I can try all of them, but since everything worked smoothly (well, relatively) before with the newest one, I doubt it'll work.

6

Okay, when logged in in Zorin type nvidia-smi in Terminal to check if there is a Driver now and if yes which one.

Also double-check if the System currently run in Wayland or X11 with the Command echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

And post the Output of the Command sudo lshw -C network so we can see Info's about Your Network Devices.

7

nvidia-smi gives "Command 'nvidia-smi' not found, but can be installed with: ...". Like I said, I switched to the xorg free driver in an attempt to fix things, and it appears this uninstalls and deletes the nvidia driver...? I am unable to reinstall it, as I have no network, but the 535 driver worked well before.

$XDG_SESSION_TYPE is wayland. I have tried using x11 with the "Zorin Desktop on Xorg" login option, but it makes no apparent difference (other than the result of that command).

sudo lshw -C network gives:
*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Ethernet controller
product: 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
vendor: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
version: 12
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: memory:fbdfc000-fbdfffff ioport:d800(size=256) memory:fbdc0000-fbddffff

8

It shows only an Ethernet Controller. You don't have Wifi, yes?

9

Correct.

10

can you bluetooth to your phone or something?

11

The computer doesn't have bluetooth either.

12

how about some sort of a USB dongle or something?

13

This is starting to sound like a reinstall of zorin maybe?

unless he did a timeshift before all the "experimenting"

14

Maybe I can find an ancient dongle in one of my drawers, but what would be the purpose of connecting to my phone?

15

Yep, like I mentioned in my original post. Seems like this is a rather obscure problem with no easy fix.

16

Edit your Grub config:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Find the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULTand add nomodeset. Then:

sudo update-grub
sudo reboot

Why Network Isn't Working
This is likely a red herring. Many systems disable networking or don't initialize network interfaces during boot if X11 (graphics) fails to load properly. Once you restore graphics driver functionality, networking should return.

Reinstall the Nvidia driver (offline)
Since you can't download, use what's already cached on your system:

sudo apt remove nvidia-driver-535
sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-535
sudo reboot

The apt cache should still have the driver package from your initial installation.
If it doesn't work, do that:

Boot from your USB stick and mount your installed Zorin drive:

sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt  # Replace X and Y with your drive partition
sudo chroot /mnt
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-535
exit
sudo umount /mnt
reboot
17

Well i know this is hindsite but in future there is a program called time shift its in the software store you can snapshoot your computer then figit with suff if it c goes wrong and you can still get in you can restore back(timeshift) back to where you were

I also use a cloning program called rescuezilla at times when things go way wrong and i cant even get zorin to boot i make a clone of working zorin then later i can use that clone to clone to main drive and im back to a working state

18

to use your phone's internet

19

Big thanks to everyone who tried to help, but the issue resolved itself by magic. After five days and thirty reboots, the system just started working normally again.

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