i have tried everything i could possibly think of, but Linux will not connect to the internet until i restart it. it doesn't matter what distro i use, it won't connect. on windows, it connects immediately, but only with fast start enabled. i have reset the router, the BIOS is up to date, and I've tried pretty much every solution i could find online. at this point i think it's a hardware issue, but I'd like to know if there's anything i can try before giving up on Linux until i get a new PC. any help is greatly appreciated!
I recently had this problem while dualbooting mint and windows: windows was shutting down the LAN hardware somehow.
Had to disable fast startup (in windows, but I recall some Motherboards have also "fast boot" in BIOS as well?) and also in windows' LAN adapter settings a power saving option.
"Will not connect to the internet" is probably too vague to troubleshoot. Isolate exactly what part is failing. Is the device receiving an IP address? Are you able to ping anything on the local network? Are you able to ping a remote IP address? If you aren't receiving an IP address, is DHCP running? Can you statically set your IP and ping out? Is there another switchport you can try on the router?
i have tried basically every mainstream distro and their forks besides base Arch, and i used the most current version for all of them, besides Clear Linux which i used the version from June 2nd for. i also mean LAN, i don't have a card for WiFi.
I saw earlier you mentioned it's an Optiplex, so I'm assuming this is an onboard NIC.
I've never had an onboard NIC not work out-of-the-box in Linux. Wifi, sure, but usually just certain chipsets with proprietary/closed firmware. Dell usually uses Intel NICs and they're usually pretty solid and well supported.
Check to make sure that the NIC is enabled in BIOS.
If you have/had Windows on this PC, did it work there?
Does the NIC show in lspci or ip a ?
Try an external USB NIC. Or an internal PCIe one if you're comfortable with that.
Try finding out if it received an IP address, if the driver is loaded or if there are any error messages in dmesg. You might also want to give more information. Which ethernet card? Which version of Linux are you running? And there seem to be some similar reports on Reddit and in some Linux forums. I couldn't find a solution, though. Maybe you just want to buy a cheap new network card.
Before you give up, maybe also try either a USB network adapter or (if your PC has space) an actual network card. Some of those can be incredibly affordable.