On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 07:56:14AM EST, Holger Wansing wrote: > Hi, > Hello,
First of all, why are you gentlmen replying to me directly instead of posting to the list? Do this mean that you would rather discuss this off-list? Or am I misundertanding how this list works? [..] > This whole problem can be splitted in two parts: > 1. the debian-installer cannot use the device since the needed > firmware is not provided. Correct. > 2. why is the firmware not in the current debian archive while it was > contained > in the archive in the past? I have not evidence it was ever provided on the distribution CD's. I was not part of etch, hence my sending in a bug report, and sarge was my first install, and I have fuzzy memories of the install. IIRC, I was running RedHat at the time and followed some debootstrap document I had found online and did not install of a full CD, netinst, etc. > To 1. > > Non-free firmware is not included in the installer iso! The installer > provides the possibility to use such firmware, but you have to provide > the particular file by hand. The process is documented in the debian > installer manual. See http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/ for the > development version of the manual. Chapter 6.4 is what you need. You > get a link there, where a file with several firmwares can be > downloaded. Try if the needed firmware is contained in that archive > file. (There is one firmware file for 3Com included, it is named > "typphon.bin" or something like that. Maybe this file works for you?) Thanks, that may come in handy in the event the version of 3CCFEM556.cis I currently use becomes obsolete and I need a new version. OTOH, I have not idea if the firmware is debian-compatible license-wise or not. That was pure speculation on my part and just a fairly legitimate assumption at that. > If no firmware from this archive file is working for you: do you have > the needed 3CCFEM556.dat file somewhere at your harddrive or similar? > Then copy it to a usb stick and provide it to the debian installer > that way. Try if the debian-installer can use the network device then. Oh, yes. I've been carrying around for about four years now. ;-) > If you don't have the 3CCFEM556.dat file anymore, you can download an > old version of the pcmcia-cs package from a debian mirror (for example > here: > http://ftp.ee.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/pcmcia-cs/pcmcia-cs_3.2.8-9_i386.deb). > It contains the needed file (as you already wrote). Try if you can > get the network device to work with debian-installer. I think I'll give that a try as soon as I get a chance. > To 2. > > Could you try to find out if the firmware is non-free? I have no idea how I could go about doing that. I mean, it's really for debian to decide whether a given piece of [soft/firm]ware meets their requirements. > Could it be included in the debian-archive? > It was included in the past, but maybe that was indeed not correct from the > DFSG point of view. Right, although speculation on my part, that's precisely what I was thinking. > The pcmcia-cs package is no more available in the debian archive. > Maybe some firmware that was included in pcmcia-cs can still be > included in debian, but was simply forgotten and removed with the > whole pcmcia-cs package? I guess if the former pcmcia-cs debian maintainer would know more about this, possibly the whole story? > Holger Thanks, and sorry to bother you about this. At least I do follow up on my bug reports ;-) CJ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
