Bug#694582: installation report Beta-4

[Brian Potkin <claremont102@gmail.com>]

On Wed 28 Nov 2012 at 01:40:26 +0100, Herbert Kaminski wrote:

Hello Herbert,

> Package: installation-reports
> 
> Boot method: netinstall, dd'ed to USB stick, text mode
> 
> Image version: 
> http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/wheezy_di_beta4/i386/iso-cd/debian-wheezy-DI-b4-i386-netinst.iso
> 
> Date: 25-NOV-2012 20:00 GMT

[Snip]
 
> This time, I tried to install through WLAN, which requires iwlwifi-3945
> firmware. I tried to provide it in a second partition of the USB stick
> used for the installation, or on a second USB stick, but the installer
> did not find it. Only after I manually mounted the stick,the firmware
> was found and loaded, and the rest of the installation, like the WLAN
> configuration and the XFCE desktop, went like a charm. Great!

This could be related to bug #694082.

1. Before or just after configuring the keyboard get a terminal with
   ALT F2.

2. Then

	nano /bin/mountmedia/

3. Find

        PARTITION_TYPE="$(blkid -p -s PART_ENTRY_TYPE $1 | cut -d ' ' -f 2 | cut -d \" -f 2)"

        if [ "$PARTITION_TYPE" != "0x5" ] && [ "$PARTITION_TYPE" != "0xf" ]; then
                mount $1 -tauto $MNT || true
                umount $MNT || true
                mount $1 -tauto $MNT
                media_mounted && checkcontents $MNT
        fi

and reduce it to

                mount $1 -tauto $MNT || true
                umount $MNT || true
                mount $1 -tauto $MNT
                media_mounted && checkcontents $MNT

4. Save and continue with the installation.

How does the detection of firmware turn out now?

> Googling for "debian installation firmware" turned up lots of pages
> with mostly contradicting information how to provide the firmware, so 
> I tied archives: deb, tar, and zip, and the unpacked firmware files
> iwlwifi-3945-1.ucode and iwlwifi-3945-2.ucode, on a vfat or ext2 file
> system, in the root directory of the stick or in a subdirectory
> named "firmware". In the log, there were warnings about utf-8 not being
> an appropriate mount option for vfat, when the installer tried to mount 
> various partitions (sdb1, sdb2) and the device sdb itself, but did not 
> find the firmware.

A vfat partition is ideal. ext2 is possible but it involves fiddling so
I'd avoid it. Loose firmware files or .debs in the root directory is the
way to go. I'd ignore the warning; please see bug #483781.