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Bug#694934: Installer hangs at detect network hardware

On 03/12/12 11:33, Brian Potkin wrote:

On Sun 02 Dec 2012 at 17:00:40 +0000, R.M. Thomas wrote:


On 02/12/12 15:30, Brian Potkin wrote:


Please look at #694582 and see if it helps.


In my case, the stall at "Detect network hardware" may not to be a firmware
issue.  After I had set up the configuration files /etc/network/interfaces and
/etc/resolv.conf the commands ifdown and ifup successfully controlled the eth0
port with no need for me to install manually any packages (drivers or firmware).
I did need the package firmware-linux-nonfree in order to get the video card
working, but I assume that was a unrelated problem.


Being able to set up networking without non-free firmware after the
installation would seem to be possible in some cases. From the
Installation Guide at

    http://d-i.debian.org/manual/en.i386/ch02s02.html

      If the debian-installer prompts for a firmware file and you do
      not have this firmware file available or do not want to install
      a non-free firmware file on your system, you can try to proceed
      without loading the firmware. There are several cases where a
      driver prompts for additional firmware because it may be needed
      under certain circumstances, but the device does work without it
      on most systems (this e.g. happens with certain network cards
      using the tg3 driver).

You did not get the prompt, of course.


Okay, that makes sense now.  In my case the ethernet controller is the RTL8111/8168B
for which the driver is r8169.  Even though the package firmware-linux-nonfree has
been installed, I am getting a message in syslog saying

r8169 0000:01:00.0: eth0: unable to load firmware patch rtl_nic/rtl8168d-1.fw (-2)

Presumably this is the firmware that debian-installer was looking for.  The firmware
seems not to be essential for the operation of the ethernet controller, although I
suppose I am losing some functionality without it.

Thanks for your help.  As far as I'm concerned this bug can be closed.  I'm unsure why
I saw no firmware prompt either for the network hardware or for the video card, but I
believe these are known issues covered by other pending bug numbers.

Mike
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