Bug#272420: Debian Installer RC1 - Fails to configure network
On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 05:59:51PM -0500, Michael Satterwhite wrote:
> The system has a 3Com 3C905C-TX network card, which is well supported by
> Linux. Apparently it isn't detected or the driver module is not part of the
> Debian installer. I looked at the Debian Installer Manual to find a way to
> manually configure the card as part of the install process, but didn't see an
> entry for this. It may be there - but it isn't obvious from the contents. As
> I did not want to reach a point that I had an unusable system with no way to
> continue, I aborted the install at that point.
>
> This highlights what is (I believe) a serious flaw in the installation
> process. You do *NOT* want someone to repartition their system if it is
> already known that they cannot complete the installation process. It is not a
> serious flaw if you don't detect the hardware (other distributions detect
> this card, but that's still not a serious flaw in the Installer). It *IS* a
> serious flaw if you don't let the user know about this before he destroys
> what is probably a currently working system. If you don't detect any network
> devices on the system, you should tell us that before asking us to
> repartition the system. Ideally, you should allow us to tell you what network
> card we have and even provide a driver if you don't have it available.
Um. I thought that was exactly what happened ... network configuration
is before partitioning, and netcfg throws loud errors if it can't make a
network connection. Did this not happen to you?
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@debian.org]
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