On Mon, Mar 08, 2021 at 06:06:17AM -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 03/03/2021 09:22 AM, Richard Owlett wrote:
> > I've one fine machine running i386 flavor of Debian 9.13 .
> > I've wish to install 64 bit flavor on a second machine.
> > debian-10.8.0-amd64-netinst.iso was successfully downloaded & saved.
> > It was copied to a USB flash drive and installation attempted.
> > Only did minimal install as I could not connect to internet.
> >
> > To eliminate possibility that second was itself defective I attempted a
> > multi-boot install to the first machine [Dell Latitude E6410].
> > Essentially same result :{
> >
> > Connection to internet is via a T-Mobile Alcatel Linkzone Hotspot.
> > The WiFi connectivity programmatically disabled (i.e. it is effectively
> > just a modem).
> > It is detected by lsusb as:
> > Bus 002 Device 008: ID 1bbb:0195 T & A Mobile Phones
> > No non-free driver is needed as none are on the working system.
> >
> > I attempted to configure the ethernet device with the numeric URL the
> > working machine uses when configuring it. The installer was happy until
> > it tried to connect to a chosen mirror. I tried 3 in the United States
> > and 1 in Canada. None worked.
> >
> > As I can boot a working Debian on that machine, all installer logs for
> > the failed install are conveniently available.
> >
> > Also I didn't find anything in
> > https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ telling details of how to
> > set up a "ethernet" device.
> >
> > What do I do now?
> > TIA
>
> I was able ONCE to use netinst.iso with Alcatel Linkzone to install Debian.
> There seem to be at least two distinct failure modes.
>
> If the Linkzone has not been used to connect to the web since last power up,
> it *WILL fail repeatably*.
>
> If it has spent time connected to the web, the install *MAY* succeed.
> Otherwise the error log says the server does not have correct release.
> I will have to do some checking to verify that.
>
> I hope to prepare a more detailed report later today.
>
> Thank you.
>
This ties into the 20 questions email I posed to you to try and narrow down
failure modes:
If your connectivity is intermittent - how do you tell that the Alcatel is
working correctly, you have IP connectivity and connection to the outside
world?
[In most cases, there's a webpage: if there's an app, how do _you_ access the
app.? ]
If you don't have network connectivity, you won't get to any mirror, obviously.
If the Alcatel is originally designed as a central hot spot to which people
would connect via WiFi - your use of USB to connect is probably an outlying
case that your ISP would have difficulty troubleshooting.
If you could respond to the 20 questions email: that's intended to narrow
down some of the issues :)
All the best, Andy C.
>
>
>
>
