> Please _don't_ suggest using Testing as someone's first experience with
> Debian. Unless the hardware is less than six months old, it's unlikely that
> any given Debian stable release won't work with it fairly well. The
> exception is cuttiing edge CPU chipsets and packages which absolutely
> require non-free firmware packages.
In my case the notebook was brandnew. Of course, stable is better than
testing.
> > I had this problem with a PackardBell notebook, which used kernel 3.2.0
> > for
> > installation. This one did not see the network device (neither lan nor
> > wlan). With testing and 3.13-1 this problem did not appear. Everything
> > worked fine.
> Firmware is sometimes problematic - installing firmware-linux-nonfree may
> often resolve this - but clues will be given as part of the install.
>
Nope, it was not a firmware problem, just that the chipset was too new for the
kernel. It could even not really read out with lspci, just gave me some
"Unknown AMD" device. Notebooks.....
> For Wheezy, if you do have problems with kernel, you may find newer packages
> in the wheezy-backports distribution.
>
Yes, afterwards it might solve the problem, but not during installation, when
you cannot get any access to the internet. And how should some unexperienced
especially a newbie get packages from wheezy-backports without lan or wlan
card?
> > Maybe I should suggest to use at least a newer kernel for installer CD's
> > to
> > the installer team?
>
> Please don't. The whole point of debian-stable is to remain stable through
> the lifetime of a release.
>
Agreed! But hardware recognition on an installer CD is IMO a very important
point. So it should at least recognise ethernet and/or wlan cards. Maybe it
can be a seperated (and newer) kernel with actual firmware (maybe unfree, but
that is no technical question but license and debian-rules related) using
during installation, then install an actual stable kernel. This would fix the
problem and does not leave an unstable system behind. I guess, this could be
easily implemented by the installer-team. Just an idea...
However, I fully agree and I guess there are not many debian users with
brandnew notebooks + strange hardware, which makes such efforts/changes
necessary. In fact, since I changed to debian potato long time ago, this was
the first time, I got into this trouble. But maybe times changed, who knows.
> All the best,
>
> AndyC
Have fun and a nice weekend!
Hans
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