[sf-lug] debian base system (initially without X11) install progress (or lack there of!) report

[Rick Moen]

Oh, I should add:

> That might happen if, say, this machine would be using a wireless
> connection to reach the Internet, and either it doesn't have a wired
> (RJ-45 jack) ethernet port at all, or it hadn't yet occurred to you to
> temporarily connect it using an ethernet cable in order to fetch the
> missing firmware blob .deb.

Let me assume for a moment that that's your basic problem.  Here's what
you do.

1.  On a different machine, do 'wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-iwlwifi_20161130-4_all.deb '

2.  Put file firmware-iwlwifi_20161130-4_all.deb on a handy-dandy USB
flash drive.  Unmount the flash drive.  Unplug it and plug it back into
your new Debian box.  

3.  As the root user on the new Debian box, do 'tail /var/log/messages'
to see what device node the flash drive is.  Kind of like this:

Dec  9 17:54:18 linuxmafia kernel: [17729123.661560] EXT3 FS on sdc1, internal journal

(Except it won't say EXT3, but probably vfat.)

4.  Mount it, like this in the example given:

mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt

5.  Install firmware:
dpkg -i /mnt/firmware-iwlwifi_20161130-4_all.deb

6.  Unmount
umount /mnt

You are done.  Probably your wireless device will now be all happy.