Bug#688744: ext2 support for USB removable media in debian-installer

[Brian Potkin <claremont102@gmail.com>]

On Tue 25 Sep 2012 at 13:44:48 +0300, Gasha wrote:

> During installation missing firmware bnx2 was reported. Installer was
> unable to copy firmware from EXT2 formatted USB flash.  Also, dialog
> screen does not mention supported filesystems.

Section 6.4. of the Installation Guide points out that a FAT-formatted
USB stick is required. My experience is that the ext2/3/4 module is not
available at that stage of the install but the vfat module is.

> I do not use windows (almost), and because of that fact do not have
> any FAT16 formatted USB flash. Only ext2.  USB flash drives larger
> than 2 Gb are common. And formatting USB flash as ext2 allows to carry
> DVD image files larger than 4 gb.
> 
> Mentioning FAT16 or FAT32 in dialog screen should be easy. Ext2
> support could be nice also.

You can use your ext2 formatted flash drive but you have to be sneaky.
Before detecting the network hardware do "Detect disks", followed by

   modprobe ext2

and

   mount -text2 /dev/sdXn /media

Then back to "Detect network hardware".