Re: A long rant on Debian 9
Hi John,
Take a look at the relevant section of the installation manual at:
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch06s04.html.en
and then download the unofficial non-free installer iso at:
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/
You can put the iso on a USB and install from there directly. It already contains the missing firmware so you don’t need to mess with separate USBs and tarballs, etc.
Rick
On May 6, 2018, at 1:51 PM, John <jpff@codemist.co.uk> wrote:
> I have been a user of debian for many years on a number of computers
> as well as other GNU/Linux systems. Recently I discovered that my
> i686 32bit machine was out of support and they were not supporting
> 32bit machines any longer. After some bad experiences with Tumbleweed I
> decided that I would install stretch so I could get experience of it
> when I am forced to upgrade my firewall (running jessie with a whezzy
> kernel).
>
> So today I d/loaded the net-install iso for debian 9.4 and wrote it to
> a usb stick. Then tried to install on the target (Thinkpad x40).
> Nice idea but it refused to use the wifi, so I proceeded via wired
> ethernet hoping I could resolve the issue later. In the process I
> think I determined the wifi problem was the need for firmware for the
> Intel ipw2200 hardware.
>
> After rather a long time it said it was installed so I rebooted -- a
> big mistake! I was hoping for a computer where I could write
> programs, mainly with xterm, emacs (with elisp) and C. I had asked
> for no gnome no kde no xfce... I usually run fvwm on X but I got a
> screen with nothing obvious to do. I did get icons (spit!) offering
> games and firefox but no xterm -- I was expecting to install emacs
> myself as I use a very recent system -- but it was in effect not a
> computer but some kind of toy. I do not play computer games and
> thought I had said not to install any
>
> Since then I have failed to get wifi although I have got the firmware
> -- but no instructions on how to install. Got aptitude installed and
> discovered load of gnome stuff cluttering up the disk (which is
> limited) and memory (ditto).
>
> How do I get a working computer? I can ssh in from elsewhere but that
> is not what I need. And I need wifi.
>
> I have never had this problem in 35 years on unix and linux, and am
> very disappointed. I suppose I can install things like csh and
> possibly xdm, exim from source etc but without an xterm.....
>
> I also noticed eventually that the duff screen came from tty2 rather
> that tty7 that I was expecting.
>
> Sorry for the rant but I really was expecting simplicity as before.
>
> ==John ffitch
>
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