Hi there,
On Fri, 01 Dec 2017 14:39:12 +0100, W. Martin Borgert wrote:
> Quoting Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org>:
> > It would have been best for him to download the ISO with non-free
> > firmware embedded, do you know how he made the decision to download
> > the ISO without non-free firmware?
>
> Every time I need a Debian ISO, it takes me minutes to find it.
> I didn't even know, that there were an ISO with non-free firmware.
>
> There should be a beautiful ISO download page, e.g.
> https://www.debian.org/download[s]/
> with all architectures and supported releases, similar to
> https://www.ubuntu.com/download
> or
> https://linuxmint.com/download.php
Like the following?
<https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/debian-installer/>
Which is 3-click away from the main page:
Release Info => <https://www.debian.org/releases/>
stable => <https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/>
2nd sentence => <https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/debian-installer/>
Or do you prefer another pointer in our official documentation?
<https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch06s04.html.en>
OK, you need to dig deeper to find this, 4-click away from the main
page:
Installation manual => <https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual>
Installation Guide for 64-bit PC (amd64) => <https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/>
2.2. Devices Requiring Firmware => <https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch02s02.html.en>
[4th sentence]
However, this does not mean that such hardware cannot be used
during an installation. Starting with Debian GNU/Linux 5.0,
debian-installer supports loading firmware files or packages
containing firmware from a removable medium, such as a USB
stick. See Section 6.4, “Loading Missing Firmware” for detailed
information on how to load firmware files or packages during the
installation.
6.4.1. Preparing a medium => <https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch06s04.html.en>
[6th sentence]
Official CD images do not include non-free firmware. The most
common method to load such firmware is from some removable medium
such as a USB stick. Alternatively, unofficial CD builds
containing non-free firmware can be found at
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/.
However, given that no one reads the documentation today, but it relies
on search engines, the first result in DuckDuckGo (and FWIW in Google as
well) for "Debian Firmware" gives...
<https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware>
...where the 3rd paragraph contains (copying it here for search
engines):
Firmware during the installation
In some cases the installer detects the need for non-free firmware and
prompts the user to make the firmware available to the installer to
complete the installation. This can happen, for example, with wireless
network cards which often require non-free firmware to function (see
ipw2200 for an example).
A suggestion, especially while installation on hardware unfamiliar to
you, is to download the firmware archive for your platform and unpack
it into a directory named firmware in the root of a removable storage
device (USB/CD drive). When the installer starts, it will
automatically find the firmware files in the directory on the
removable storage and, if needed, install the firmware for your
hardware. You can find firmware downloads for your Debian version at
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/firmware/.
In some cases, firmware supplied on removable media may not be
detected automatically (e.g. 740503). In these situations, drop to the
console and manually mount (see mount(8)) your removable storage on a
temporary directory (e.g. /media).
Alternatively, you can use one of the parallel installer image builds
that also include all the non-free firmware packages directly. We have
"netinst" CD images and also DVD installer images - see
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/
Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca