Re: [Debian 8.0 Installation] Firmware files on USB stick with debian iso
On Fri 01 May 2015 at 09:13:00 +0530, Avinash Sonawane wrote:
> Finally I went ahead without the firmware files and installed the
> Debian 8.0. And now it's working just fine! Perhaps due to the fact
> that I selected the mirror and fetched packages from Internet (using
> Ethernet) during installation.
>
> My advice will be : Do not try to use firmware files at the time of
> installation.
>
> Though you'll follow the official Debian Installation Guide, "loading
> firmware at the time of install" most probably not gonna work. First
> you'll be posed with GPT error (with Gparted and Disks applications)
> when you'll try to create a new FAT partition (as suggested in
> Installation Guide). Then you'll think to use fdisk command line
> utility to make you way and though you'll be able to create the
> partition using fdisk, you'll be posed with missing kernel modules
> message during installation and thus will leave you no choice but to
> continue install *without* loading the firmware files.
>
> In short though official Debian Installation Guide discusses about
> loading the firmware files alongside the Debian installation image on
> a single USB stick, the mechanism is most probably screwed up. Hope
> that changes till next release.
It is disappointing that the advice in the Installation Guide did not
work for you. However, all is not lost.
It was mentioned earlier that the image has a second partition which
could be used for holding firmware files. Unfortunately, the space
remaining on it (~30K) is probably not sufficient for even one file.
So a third partition has to created and you have to realise it must
start after the end of the first partition.
The installer will always use files in /lib/firmware. Extract the
needed ones from a .deb and put them on the third partition.
Boot. At the first screen switch to a console (ALT-F2). 'ls /dev/sdb*'
could help identify the third partition on the USB stick.
1. Mount this partition; e.g: mount -t vfat /dev/sdc3 /mnt
2. mkdir /lib/firmware
3. cp -r /mnt/* /lib/firmware
Proceed with the install.
Reply to: