Unable to switch to r8168 driver on Manjaro Linux Kernel 6.12.28-1

Hello,

​I am experiencing trouble switching to the r8168 driver for my network card. The system currently uses r8169 (kernel 6.12.28-1-Manjaro`).

​Here are the steps I have taken so far:

​Attempted to install the network-r8168 package, but received “target not found” errors.
​Verified the kernel version with uname -r, which is 6.12.28-1-Manjaro.
​Attempted to install the package corresponding to the current kernel, but this was not successful.
​Blacklisted r8169 by creating a configuration file and regenerating kernel modules with sudo mkinitcpio -P.

​Despite these steps, inxi -n still shows the driver status as NA, although r8168 is listed as installed by Pacman.

Here is the output of inxi:

System:
  Kernel: 6.12.28-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.1.1
  Desktop: i3 v: 4.24 dm: LightDM Distro: Manjaro base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: Micro-Star model: B450M-A PRO MAX II (MS-7C52) v: 2.0
    serial: <superuser required> BIOS: American Megatrends LLC. v: A.30
    date: 07/13/2024
CPU:
  Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 2
    rev: 0 cache: L1: 384 KiB L2: 3 MiB L3: 32 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 550 min/max: 550/4909 boost: enabled cores: 1: 550
    2: 550 3: 550 4: 550 5: 550 6: 550 7: 550 8: 550 9: 550 10: 550 11: 550
    12: 550 bogomips: 100825
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070] vendor: ASUSTeK driver: nvidia
    v: 570.144 arch: Pascal pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: none
    off: HDMI-A-2 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DVI-D-1, HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 29:00.0
    chip-ID: 10de:1b81
  Display: x11 server: X .org v: 1.21.1.16 compositor: Picom v: 12.5 driver:
    X: loaded: nvidia gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-2 mapped: HDMI-1 note: disabled model: VZ27EHF
    res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 82 diag: 686mm (27")
  API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: nvidia device: 1 drv: nouveau
    device: 2 drv: swrast gbm: drv: nvidia surfaceless: drv: nvidia x11:
    drv: nvidia inactive: wayland
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 570.144
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070/PCIe/SSE2
  Info: Tools: api: eglinfo,glxinfo gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi
    x11: xprop,xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GP104 High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 29:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:10f0
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Starship/Matisse HD Audio
    vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s
    lanes: 16 bus-ID: 2b:00.4 chip-ID: 1022:1487
  API: ALSA v: k6.12.28-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api with: aoss
    type: oss-emulator
  Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: r8169
    v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: f000 bus-ID: 25:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8125
  IF: enp37s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 953.87 GiB used: 7.06 GiB (0.7%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: MicroFrom model: 1TB SATA3 SSD size: 953.87 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 953.87 GiB used: 7.06 GiB (0.7%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-2: /home size: 953.87 GiB used: 7.06 GiB (0.7%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-3: /var/log size: 953.87 GiB used: 7.06 GiB (0.7%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 38.2 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 42 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 0%
Info:
  Memory: total: 16 GiB available: 15.54 GiB used: 1.58 GiB (10.2%)
  Processes: 286 Power: uptime: 13m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 257
    default: graphical
  Packages: pm: pacman pkgs: 1055 Compilers: gcc: 15.1.1 Shell: Bash
    v: 5.2.37 running-in: urxvtd inxi: 3.3.38

​Any further guidance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Please format your inxi output properly.

as “preformatted text” using three backticks before and after or by using the </> symbol in the editor

What does that look like? (how did you check?)

If that failed I would not be surprised by the module not being available.

There are precompiled drivers available in the repos for each supported kernel version.
But the name is not what you looked for.
For the linux612 kernel it is:
linux612-r8168

That driver change should be easy to do from the manjaro settings manager / mhwd.

Use Manjaro Settings Manager > Hardware Configuration

Or

sudo mhwd -i pci network-r8168

That should install kernel specific driver linux612-r8168 , kernel headers linux612-headers and blacklist the r8169 driver

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Welcome to the forum! :wave:

Possible XY Problem detected. Why are you switching? What’s wrong with r8169?

Either way, it is normally best to use r8169 as it’s an in-tree kernel module. The out-of-tree r8168 is not actively maintained and is possibly missing fixes and features the former may have.

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