Steam not working / Uploads not working

[Sl8er]

do you have a previously existing ~/.local/share/Steam folder? I'm thinking that maybe its looking for a network connection that is not longer present.

Hmm, I just checked and there is no ~/.local/share/Steam

EDIT: There is a ~/.steam folder, though. But I deleted it every time I did a new installation -as per some instructions I found online. (That was about the extent of
my manually deleting steam stuff.)

[dolphin_oracle]

this is a dumb question, but did you say "yes" to the license agreement?

[Sl8er]

this is a dumb question, but did you say "yes" to the license agreement?

Yes I did.

[Stevo]

Off-topic, but you don't need those two Waterfox repos, since we have it in our own repo and it's installable in the MX Package Installer.

[timkb4cq]

You have a Realtek 8111h ethernet chipset. Realtek suggests using the non-free r8168 driver for that chipset instead of the open source r8169 driver present in the kernel.

To build the r8168 driver, install the r8168-dkms package. This package builds the non-free driver and disables the one you are now using.
I would use

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get r8168-dkms

because you will see the messages as the driver auto-builds. It should work - but I haven't tried it with the newer kernels, and if the messages show that it failed you will want to

Code: Select all

dpkg -P 8168-dkms

before you reboot, lest you be left with no network driver at all.

Update 21:03
The r8168-dkms version 8.043.02 in debian stretch will not build with kernel 4.19. I have backported the buster version for the MX repo. I tested it with the same kernel version you have and it does build a working driver. Since I didn't have your particular problem I can't guarantee it will solve it but it does function normally on my similar realtek 8111 chipset.

Check to make sure your mirror has r8168-dkms version 8.046.00-1~mx17 before trying to install the package.

[Sl8er]

Off-topic, but you don't need those two Waterfox repos, since we have it in our own repo and it's installable in the MX Package Installer.

Ah ok, I see.
Now...how do I remove it? haha!
(You guys will have to bear with me, I'm still new to the whole Linux thing.)

[Sl8er]

You have a Realtek 8111h ethernet chipset. Realtek suggests using the non-free r8168 driver for that chipset instead of the open source r8169 driver present in the kernel.

To build the r8168 driver, install the r8168-dkms package. This package builds the non-free driver and disables the one you are now using.
I would use

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get r8168-dkms

because you will see the messages as the driver auto-builds. It should work - but I haven't tried it with the newer kernels, and if the messages show that it failed you will want to

Code: Select all

dpkg -P 8168-dkms

before you reboot, lest you be left with no network driver at all.

Update 21:03
The r8168-dkms version 8.043.02 in debian stretch will not build with kernel 4.19. I have backported the buster version for the MX repo. I tested it with the same kernel version you have and it does build a working driver. Since I didn't have your particular problem I can't guarantee it will solve it but it does function normally on my similar realtek 8111 chipset.

Check to make sure your mirror has r8168-dkms version 8.046.00-1~mx17 before trying to install the package.

Ok, wow!
As mentioned in my previous post, I'm still new to Linux so I'm just going to copy and paste the commands above -and hold thumbs!
I'll post the outcome.

[Sl8er]

As an aside:

I just want to say thank you so much for all the suggestions, help and patience thus far!
You're all GREAT!

(I'll post what happens after I followed the instructions above.)

[Sl8er]

You have a Realtek 8111h ethernet chipset. Realtek suggests using the non-free r8168 driver for that chipset instead of the open source r8169 driver present in the kernel.

To build the r8168 driver, install the r8168-dkms package. This package builds the non-free driver and disables the one you are now using.
I would use

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get r8168-dkms

because you will see the messages as the driver auto-builds. It should work - but I haven't tried it with the newer kernels, and if the messages show that it failed you will want to

Code: Select all

dpkg -P 8168-dkms

before you reboot, lest you be left with no network driver at all.

Update 21:03
The r8168-dkms version 8.043.02 in debian stretch will not build with kernel 4.19. I have backported the buster version for the MX repo. I tested it with the same kernel version you have and it does build a working driver. Since I didn't have your particular problem I can't guarantee it will solve it but it does function normally on my similar realtek 8111 chipset.

Check to make sure your mirror has r8168-dkms version 8.046.00-1~mx17 before trying to install the package.

Ok, so I copied and pasted: sudo apt-get r8168-dkms
and I got: E: Invalid operation r8168-dkms

I thought this meant that the mirror didn't have "r8168-dkms".
So I changed to the London, UK mirror -in MX Repo Manager.
Did the "update" (and "upgrade").
After pasting in the command again, I still got the same "E: Invalid operation r8168-dkms"

I decided to try: sudo apt install r8168-dkms
That seemed to successfully install something.
I tried Steam after that, but still got the same "Could not connect...." error.

In the update of your post, you mentioned to make sure that the mirror has "r8168-dkms version 8.046.00-1~mx17"
I mistakenly did not do this...how can check this?

In the meantime, I'm going to reboot the system and try Steam again.

[Sl8er]

Ok, rebooted and still no success with Steam.

I scratched around online and did:

$ apt-cache policy r8168-dkms
r8168-dkms:
Installed: 8.046.00-1~mx17
Candidate: 8.046.00-1~mx17
Version table:
*** 8.046.00-1~mx17 500
500 http://mxlinux.mirrors.uk2.net/packages/mx/repo stretch/non-free amd64 Packages
500 http://mxlinux.mirrors.uk2.net/packages/mx/repo stretch/non-free i386 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
8.043.02-1 500
500 http://ftp.br.debian.org/debian stretch/non-free amd64 Packages
500 http://ftp.br.debian.org/debian stretch/non-free i386 Packages


According to that, I assume that I have the correct package version.