How to use Driver Manager without internet [Solved]

[puddleglum]

How can I bring up the Driver Manager without internet access on Cinnamon 18.3. I just want to bring it up to toggle the existing drivers, not download updates in the intervening half hour.

My intel wifi got messed up with the upgrade to kernel 4.13.0-26 and disconnects after a few seconds. When I bring up the Driver Manager it complains about no internet and refuses to show me the existing drivers that are already installed there. It says no drivers in use and to use the install disk, but I want to toggle the existing drivers not install old ones off the disk.

[Dave B]

Hi puddleglum, C. S. Lewis fan?

Driver Manager only needs the Linux Mint installation media while offline to show currently installed drivers, it won't install older drivers unless you tell it too.

Unless you've removed the older kernels, when you restart your computer you can keep tapping the left Shift key to bring up the GRUB menu, from there look in advanced options and select the older kernel to boot. This will hopefully get your WiFi working again so you can either...
A) download an updated WiFi driver, restart the computer so kernel 4.13.0-26 is loaded again.
or
B) install the latest 4.4 kernel (currently 4.4.0-109) and check if the WiFi works.

Tip: If you install the 4.4.0-109 kernel you'll need to select this from the GRUB screen advanced options since only the most recent kernel revision number is loaded. If decide to keep that kernel, other kernels can be removed using Update Manager -> View -> Linux kernels.

[puddleglum]

Thanks for the info, Dave. That did the trick. I was able to boot into the old kernel and access the Driver Manager from there. Turns out I had bigger problems with the video driver. NVIDIA-304 won't run with the 4.13.0-26 kernel and nouveau would freeze my display at times. I ended up installing the 4.4.0-109 kernel and everything is back to normal.

P.S.
Yes, C.S. Lewis is a great author and I especially liked Tom Baker's portrayal of Puddleglum in his PBS performance of The Silver Chair.

[Dave B]

Great! You're welcome!

First time read your username I pictured Tom Baker as Puddleglum.