Debian not detecting my network card
I've been trying to get Debian up and running on one of my laptops recently using both the Woody distribution CDs and the Sarge netinstall ISO (burnt to a separate CD). However, Debian refuses to setup my network card automatically. I don't know why, but instead it forces me to go through a huge list of network card drivers for my NIC (which I presume is built onto the motherboard, since it's not on a PCMCIA card and it's a laptop), of which I have tried a few but they all refuse to work. Without support for my network card, I can't do a network install, so it's not something I can just overlook.
Does anyone know if there's a way to get Debian to automatically detect my network hardware? It must be able to do it somehow because every other distribution I've used (including Slackware, which is targetted at the same type of people who are likely to use Debian) has found my network card without fail on various machines, but Debian always chokes on this point no matter which options I select. |
when you get into the portion of the installation when it asks you which network adapter you have, type "alt+F2" this will allow you to open and terminal, where you can use the "lscpi" command to find the name of your network adapter. From that information you can google the module which you should use. Then voila you can pick it from the list and continue with your installation. Good luck amigo.
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I haven't tried it yet, but the new debian-installer
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ does hardware detection. I think there's a Sarge netinst image up on that page that you can get. Also, a short review/walk-through of the new installer http://www.thiesen.org/d-i/index.html Let us know how you fare. |
The lscpi command doesn't seem to exist - I get the error 'lscpi: not found' when I try to run it at the terminal prompt.
I am actually using the Sarge netinstall (as I mentioned in my first post) but it keeps moaning about my CD-ROM not being detected (which is completely stupid, since the installer is running from it) and it won't let me manually partition my disks, even if I try to launch cfdisk from the console. |
if it doesn't detect it configure it after by building a brand new kernel and including the driver for your network card.
ps: You must know the family of your network card to enable it |
Well, I eventually managed to find out that it was a generic VIA technologies card (as is everything else, because it's nearly all motherboard-based being a laptop). I was surprised that Debian didn't configure it automatically though, seeing as every other distribution I've used (which is most of the well-known ones) managed to, and also it said I should remove PCMCIA support which is a stupid thing to do on a laptop.
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for pcmcia some use it for network cards, some like you don't.. You could have loaded the module for your network card at install when it offered you do do so.
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it's still beta, so hopefully these things will get worked out -- don't forget to send an install report on the probs you encountered:
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ |
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Anyway, when it finally got installed X didn't work - probably because there was no /etc/X11/XFree86Config file present. I really wish the Debian team would put a bit more effort into making the installer work. Slackware has an easy-to-follow text-based install that has always detected most, if not all, of my hardware without any problems, so why not Debian? |
For network cards, sometimes debian detect it and sometimes it doesn't anyway most people use a custom kernel... At installation at just only modprobe the network card to be able to upgrade to testing and install almost nothing. if you installed xserver-xfree86 it should have shown you a dialog to configure XFree and to create XF86Config-4 file...
I really wish the Debian team would put a bit more effort into making the installer work it workS...some don't know how to use it and are used to have everything done, like most mandrake users. EXEMPLES OF WHAT PEOPLE COULD SAY ABOUT SLACKWARE FOR EXAMPLE(MOST NEWBIES) I am running slackware current right now and it is almost the same than debian, in terms of configurations, but no real apt-get. Swaret is cool but apt is great. some could say for example, why do i don't have a update-rc.d command in slack :-) i am used to it even if i can do the job myself. A newbie would say also why do i have to edit inittab. Mandrake doesn't offer this option. Why doesn't XFree configure correctly at first try , i had to do it manually(just an exemple, i didn't really care as i am used to configure it). Why do we have to modprobe at slackware installation? Mandrake configures it without asking any question. Should we wish thant slack do it and why isn't all distro having a graphical installation... When you use slackware or debian that means you don't expect everything to happen and wait for it like most desktop distros. |
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Siddhesh |
I thought it was lspci as well, but I got the same error message for that so it doesn't make any difference...
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read a little bit on debian site, even if you come from slackware it doesn't mean you've seen lots of stuff ... Work it like a newbie would. You might get nice and bad suprises...but you already know about the existence of man command.
good luck |
I think you must use lspci as root. This is to determine the different pci cards/chips on your system. If you do not know your card type (checking your laptop manual might help you get some info), you may try to install kudzu.
I think you should get kudzu on one of debian distribution cds, though i do recommend you actually doing some R&D about your system if you're trying to learn. Siddhesh |
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