Linux Mint 13 "network config" problem.

Its me again. This time with a problem involving Linux Mint.

Some how trying to get the wifi card on my laptop to work the Network Manager service was removed from boot up.

So here is what happends. Turn on laptop and select Mint from the GRUB menu, The screen goes black and a message pops up:
"Waiting for Network Configuration" after about 60 seconds or so it changes to: "starting without network configuration in 60 seconds"

After about 3 min of waiting doing nothing Mint boots. I have to use

Every time If I want to join my network or use the internet. After I input the above code the service starts and automaticly connects to the internet/network and all is fine unless I shut down the laptop.

Here is the next problem. I installed Windows XP Professional on the laptop Via CD. Then used the USB drive install method for installing Linux Mint 13 on the system after XP, went pretty smooth and GRUB is doing its job but after I installed Mint I cannot for any reason boot from CD or USB. I tried to do a re install of linux to correct the network problem and it wont boot form CD or USB. No mater what I select in the BIOS for the boot priority it loads strait to GRUB for the OS selection.

So it seems if I want to reinstall Mint I have to format the entire drive and start up.. and XP is already running flawlessly with all update's and tweaks lol. Please help!

Thanks, when I googled the Network Config situation there are a million and one guide's to make the message not display and the countdown is disabled but after doing them it still take's for ever to boot. I'll try your situation.

As for the boot from CD its not that big of a deal. Unless I'm installing an OS on this laptop I will never need to boot from CD/USB. When I asked on the linux MINT forums all that was said by the "linux gurus" is that grub cannot interfear with the BIOS set boot options. Now I see that as wrong, GRUB is taking over before the CD ROM drive or USB's are even powered on. Surly there is a way to delay GRUB's start up by a few seconds, I'll have to look into it. Thank you for your quick response.

ok, Well when I first had this problem I looked for a "Services" window (common sense told me too) and I never found one, or found any evidence of one in Mint 13 from Google. I have loaded up all the Desktop GUI's I have to find it, and searched everywhere There is absolutly no clickable option to open up a services menu. Is there a a terminal command I can use to open it?
I couldn't find it on my Cinnamon desktop, GNOME Classic, or Gnome desktop's.

I'm running Mint 13 Cinnamon if it matters. I'll keep looking and trying random Terminal commands to find it. Thanks.

Ok, Thanks. I had already explored this menu but might be doing/reading it wrong. Both the Network-Manager and Wicd Network Manager Tray services are checked.
I have a basic question really fast. When I found this window I assumed that it controlled start up applications for a user, not the entire OS as a whole? Now I have a lot of stuff to google, I'll try updating the service to see if that helps out any. Thank you and +1

I know how to boot the laptop from a CD or USB stick. Been doing it on this laptop for a while before actually installing Mint. Fact: This laptop booted from CD and usb before Linux. Fact: it dose not boot from CD or USB after I installed linux as dual boot.

When the Compaq logo show's up on my laptop you press 'esc' and a boot menu show's up allowing you to select what device to boot from. with both OS's installed the esc command wouldn't go though. I tried holding it during boot, pressing it repeatedly while booting and nothing. the BIOS was updated to the lastest version (by me in the last two weeks). The boot media is not corrupted. Both the XP and all my linux boot media works on other PC's (both of mine, all my parent's and a friend's PC. 6 in total).

I'm not going to pretend I know how or why it won't boot from media. I do know that I know how to boot from a CD or usb stick, I was able to load both a USB stick and a CD to install XP and Mint with no problems getting them to boot. Linux is slowly wearing on my paitence. in the last two weeks I have installed linux countless time's. only once did the install work. The other 5-6 times it's buggy and chalk full of problems and error's. The worst part is there are a million fix's to each problem, some work most do not.

Still trying to correct the issue with the networking. So far nothing has worked. I even tryed to manually set up the connection and it still would leave me "waiting for network config" followed by a long boot time. I extremely busy right now but by tomorrow will report back. Thank you for your contribution.
Edited by KhaoticKomputing - 8/25/12 at 4:05pm