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

[Alex Kleider]

I began over again and this time was able to get both wifi and ethernet 
working!
During the install I was able to get the installer to get the required 
...ucode files using the approach described here:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/how-to-provide-non-free-firmware-files-to-the-debian-jessie-installer-4175542680/
All went smoothly but after reboot, the system had neither ethernet or 
wifi connectivity.
I went through the process you described (not snipped and included 
below) but to no avail.  Still no connectivity.
It puzzles me how the system could have connectivity during the 
installation process but loose it with the reboot although I seem to 
remember in the past experiencing a similar (never solved) problem.  
Perhaps the configuration is only in volatile memory during installation 
and disappears with the reboot.

Again, I need to emphasize that during installation, I do have 
connectivity. No doubt about that.

My stick by the way has the following files on it:
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex alex    5524182 Dec 10 12:47 
firmware-iwlwifi_20161130-4_all.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex alex     353240 Oct 13 12:27 iwlwifi-5000-2.ucode
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex alex     340696 Oct 13 12:27 iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
along with many non "50000" series ucode files.  At times the system 
seems happy with only the '2' and the '5' version but at other times it 
'demands' all 1..5.

The deb file is from Ricks reference, the others come from the 
linuxquestions posting referenced above.





On 2018-12-09 23:21, Rick Moen wrote:
> 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.

Regrettably not (details above.)