Re: Proprietary WiFi drivers for live mode
On Sat 25 Jun 2022 at 19:12:30 (+0300), Kristijonas Lukas Bukauskas wrote:
> On 2022-06-25 18:48, Bijan Soleymani wrote:
> > On 6/25/2022 11:11 AM, Kristijonas Lukas Bukauskas wrote:
> >> How do I get Wifi working right in live mode? I would prefer Debian, but
> >> any Linux ready-to-use image would work for me.
> >
> > You can install packages on the live CD. (sudo apt update, sudo apt
> > install, etc.)
> >
> > Whatever actions are required to get it to work on a full install you
> > can do on the live CD (assuming you have enough RAM to hold stuff on
> > ramdisk I guess).
> >
> > As long as you don't need to reboot (which you shouldn't to load a
> > kernel module) you should be fine.
> >
> WiFi will be the only networking option. The installation guide [1]:
>
> > apt-get install linux-image-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') broadcom-sta-dkms
> > modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcmsmac bcma
> > modprobe wl
>
> Would these packages be in 11.3.0-live+nonfree image?
I don't know where you obtained your live image, but the Debian
website typically carries:
$ ls -Glg live/11.3.0/i386-with/
total 1877468
-rw-r----- 1 5584 Mar 26 12:47 SHA512SUMS
-rw-r----- 1 833 Mar 26 16:23 SHA512SUMS.sign ↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓
-rw-r----- 1 84346 Mar 26 12:10 debian-live-11.3.0-i386-standard+nonfree.contents
-rw-r----- 1 1921843200 Mar 26 12:10 debian-live-11.3.0-i386-standard+nonfree.iso
-rw-r----- 1 546324 Mar 26 12:10 debian-live-11.3.0-i386-standard+nonfree.log
-rw-r----- 1 30624 Mar 26 12:10 debian-live-11.3.0-i386-standard+nonfree.packages
$
> I would really prefer building an image to the USB stick so that I could
> use Wi-fi right after booting the system without a need to install
> packages every single time (The laptop is used by someone else who isn't
> that programming/configuring things/terminal-commands friendly).
Like David Christensen, I'd install Debian on a USB stick (I use
netinst with firmware) on your regular computer, and then boot it
there, and install all the software that you want on your system.
If you don't actually install the wifi packages (and any firmware)
that you will need, at least make sure they're downloaded onto the
stick. When you boot it on the old laptop, you can install them then.
I've only performed this with a 16GB laptop, so I didn't put a swap
partition on the USB stick, saving wear and tear. I don't know how
much memory your old laptop has. In any case, as David points out,
use a very good stick.
There may be extra factors to consider if your regular computer and
the old laptop differ in how they boot (ie BIOS vs UEFI). My habit
has been to partition with GPT, and start with a BIOS Boot partition
followed by the ESP, ie like:
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 8191 3.0 MiB EF02 BIOS boot partition
2 8192 1023999 496.0 MiB EF00 EFI System
… …… … … … … …… … … …
Cheers,
David.
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