I'm coming back from a break from Linux and reloading an old Asus EEEpc to play with.
Decided to start with a clean Squeeze install.
However I get the dreaded "link down/link not ready" console messages during the install.

I searched around some and there are workarounds, drivers and/or modules that can be messed with to make the 8169 go. But I'm pretty inexperienced with that stuff, surprisingly in my Linux experience, the hardware/driver relationship "just works".

So my question is, before I spend a lot of time learning to hack this, is there any reason to think it's possible to pull this off during the Debian install procedure? It seems like there are not enough tools installed during the install.

The only other option I can think of is using a USB NIC/wifi adapter to at least get the system installed then hack around when it's on the internet and I have a full OS to use to fix itself. I just don't happen to have one of those laying around.

Thanks for any help!

Obviously you are missing the binary firmware. Eitther download the package firmware-realtek, place in on a usbv stick and load it when asked or download an unofficial iso from here, which has the firmware files already in it

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/un...ding-firmware/