Hi Jim, On 2013-04-12 23:26, Jim wrote: > I just downloaded the full live install IOS for Debian and burned to a > USB. Booting using the USB works but I can not find any link or clue on > how to connect the computer to the wireless router. > > If there is a page that would help me get that done? > > Jim > > --
In the past few days, I installed Debian Live on a USB stick for the first time and was faced with the same problem as You. I'll describe what I did to solve it. When I tried to configure the wireless interface in the KDE network options, it was ghosted out, which I guessed meant that I first had to install a driver package for my Broadcom interface. No, to install anything (permanently) on a live system, one needs persistent storage, which doesn´t go away when the system is shut down, because the ISO image is read-only. I never got this to work with stable (Squeeze), so I went with an ISO image of Debian Live Wheezy from <http://live.debian.net/cdimage/release/next/>, and got it to work just fine. How to do this is described in section 10.3 of <http://live.debian.net/manual/3.x/html/live-manual/customizing-run-time-behaviours.en.html#529> but I´ll walk You through the steps I used: I booted the live system, opened a ´Terminal´ window and used ´mount´ to find the device name of the USB stick (in my case /dev/sdb). The ISO image partition was /dev/sdb1. To create the persistent storage, I then created a second partition on the same stick from the remaining free space using the command cfdisk. 1) Enter ´# sudo cfdisk /dev/sdX´, where ´X´ is the letter referring to Your USB stick. Make sure it´s the right one so You don´t erase the hard drive! 2) Select the free space, hit ´N(ew)´ to create a new partition, then select ´Primary´ and hit ´Enter´ to confirm that the entire remaining space of the stick is to be used for the new partition. Write the partition table to the stick by ´Shift-w´ (answer ´yes´ to the question). Now the new partition sdX2 should appear in the list. Quit cfdisk. 3) Install a file system, e.g. ext4, on /dev/sdX2 using the command # sudo mkfs.ext4 -L persistence /dev/sdX2 labeling it ´persistence´. 4) After the command completes, mount the new partition: # sudo mount -t ext4 /persistence /mnt to be able to write a config file to its root directory: 5) I used the editor ´pico´: # sudo pico /mnt/persistence.conf entered the line "/ union", and saved the file (ctrl-O). Note the space after ´/´. You can also omit ´ union´ (see manual), but I did it this way. This creates a writable extension to the root file system which survives reboots. (There are other possible options mentioned in the manual...) 6) Unmount the partition: # sudo umount /mnt 7) Shutdown the system and boot it again, but this time, when the boot menu appears, hit ´TAB´ and enter ´ persistence´ before hitting ´RETURN´. Note the leading space. You have to do this every time You boot to get access to the persistent storage. To create a boot menu entry for it (and make it default), it seems one has to edit the file live.cfg in the /isolinux directory of the ISO image it seems, *before* You write it to the USB stick, if I understand it correctly, because the persistent storage isn´t available at the point of the booting process where the menu is displayed. 8) When booting is completed, the persistent storage is mounted in ´/´ and also shows up in /lib/live/mount/persistence/sdX2 where You can find all directories of the live system. However, You use the system in the same way You do with a HDD-based one, writing user files to /home/user/..., for example. Any change to the live system is automatically written to this writable storage. 9) Finally, to install the Broadcom driver, I appended the line deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian wheezy main contrib non-free to the config file /etc/apt/sources.list , and then entered the commands (make sure the computer is connected to the Internet): # sudo aptitude update # sudo aptitude install firmware-brcm80211 wireless-tools After shutting down the system and rebooting (with persistence), the wireless interface was turned on so I could configure it. Since then I surf without the Ethernet cable :-) Of course, in Your case You probably need another WLAN driver, corresponding to Your device. I find the persistent storage great, since I can update the system, save bookmarks, and other things. On the other hand, the untouched, original system is still available: Just hit ´Enter´ when the Debian Live boot menu appears, and You get the system without persistent storage. This is particularly good if the system gets screwed up by changes written to ´persistence´; just erase that partition and start over. Hope this helps, -- Chris -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/5169aa0b.4000...@swipnet.se
