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How would I install a bare-bones Ubuntu and get the network connection working on a system where the installer behaves as described below, seemingly as if it was not connected to a network? When I say "bare-bones", I mean as minimal installation as is practical. Ideally I want Ubuntu Minimal, but if that refuses to work altogether, I'd settle with a close equivalent. I see two paths to it: either get the network connection working with the installer, or acquire an offline installer and then get the network working after the OS has been installed.

Edit: I noticed the problem only manifested if I rebooted straight from Windows to Linux by using the "restart" feature of Windows. If I shut down the machine completely first and then booted up to Linux, the network worked fine. This clue lead me to a solution, see the answer I posted myself.

I only have a vague idea of what I'm doing. That's why I'll be a bit more detailed than would be necessary if I had the knowledge to extract only the necessary information of what's wrong.

When I try to install Ubuntu Minimal or Server from an USB drive, the installation fails to "bad archive mirror" error when it tries to download something it apparently needs for the installation. When I tried to diagnose it further, it seems the installer cannot connect to Internet. I'm trying to do the installation on a machine where there already is Windows 7 installed, and the network works just fine on the Windows.

During the installation, before the bad archive mirror error, there is a network configuration phase. During this phase, the following steps occur:

  • "Detecting link on em1: please wait...". Seems to complete just fine, rather quickly.
  • "Waiting for link-local address..." completes so fast I can barely read the text.
  • "Attempting IPV6 autoconfiguration..." completes without error after 15 or so seconds.
  • "Configuring the network with DHCP" fails after 30 seconds of trying. The error message includes "Your network is probably not using DHCP protocol". My network is using it, with Inteno X5668 modem acting as the DHCP server. As mentioned, it works when using the installed Windows.

The installer then offers me the option to manually configure the network settings. At this point, before the manual configuration steps, I can open the terminal. The command "ip a" results in following output: (I don't have good grasp of what the output means or what the command does. I came accross the command when searching for a solution for the problem.)

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue
     link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
     inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
     inet6 ::1/128 scope host
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: em1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
     link/ether [NETWORK ADAPTER MAC ADDRESS HERE] brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Pinging anything else but 127.0.0.1 or 0.0.0.0 at this stage results in "sendto: network is unreachable" message, including pinging the router.

Other common troubleshooting commands I am aware of I don't have access to during the installation (eg. ifconfig).

If I select to "not configure network now" and proceed with the installation, the installation halts a few steps later with the "bad mirror archive" error.

I have tried to select manual network configuration, in which case I get to enter IP address, subnet mask, gateway address and DNS address manually. I entered the same values for these that the Windows 7 on the same machine is using, including the address of the router as gateway and DNS. These values include 192.168.1.1 for the router, and 192.168.1.2 for the machine the OS is being installed on. After inputting these, the "Detecting link on em1" step occurs again. This time I suspect it's failing, as the progress bar stays at 0% for a good while, until the screen suddenly goes blank for a moment and then the next step of the installation appears.

After the manual configuration, the output of the "ip a" command is the following:

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue
     link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
     inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
     inet6 ::1/128 scope host
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: em1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
     link/ether [NETWORK ADAPTER MAC ADDRESS HERE] brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
     inet 192.168.1.2/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global em1
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
     inet6 fe80::468a:5bff:fea0:5e00/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Ping commands at this point don't output an error message, but result in 100% packet loss. This includes pinging the router.

After this, proceeding with the installation again stops soon with the "bad archive mirror" error.

I've tried both normal and command line install from 'Ubuntu 14.04 "Trusty Tahr" Minimal CD' from the minimal CD wiki page under the '64-bit PC (amd64, x86_64)' section, and command line install from Ubuntu server image 'ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso'. I've tried using both Linux Live USB Creator and UNetbootin for creating the USB installation media I'm installing from. They all behave the same way.

I have tried rebooting the router. It did not change anything. When I rebooted it, the installer was already running, but in an earlier step before the network configuration phase.

I've been trying to find an offline installer, so that the lack of network connection would not be a problem during installation and I could troubleshoot it after the OS has been installed, but I haven't been able to find one for the configuration I want. The installers I tried seem to need to download some files during the installation process. I don't want the regular desktop install of Ubuntu. My original intention was to install the Minimal installation. I then tried the Server one in the hopes I could install that offline, but that does not seem to be the case. Even if such installer exists, I will probably still need help resolving the problem with the installed OS.

The machine has MSI MPower Z97 motherboard, which has integrated Intel I218-V network adapter. Perhaps the driver the installer is using does not work properly with the I218-V? I found out some other users had problems with this network controller until they manually installed some non-default driver, but that was after they successfully completed the installation. Would it be possible for me to mod the ISO so that it uses a different driver during the installation?

The Windows 7 that is already present on the machine has been installed in and is presently booting with UEFI mode.

Any ideas?

1 Answer 1

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It seems the issue of not being able to connect to the Internet is somehow caused by Windows NIC drivers and Wake-on-LAN.

From my Windows drivers settings I turned off the setting "Wake on Magic Packet from power off state". I've had no problems with connecting to Internet with Linux since then. The other "Wake on" settings I'm able to have enabled with no problems. I did not even have the "Wake on Magic Packet from power off state" setting visible before I updated my drivers to a more recent version - the old version had the same problem, but the setting was not there to be turned off.

Image of the NIC drivers setting window for reference.

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