The DVD .ISO image I downloaded lacks a built-in driver for my Intel PCIexpress NIC (e1000e). The installer tells me it doesn't see an Ethernet card, and it offers me a list of drivers that might fit, but the list doesn't include an e1000e... but wait! I see an option to load from a driver floppy. (oh, boy!)

I downloaded the source files from http://e1000.sf.net and compiled them on another box and copied the resulting files to a floppy. When I ran the Debian installer again, and offered it this floppy disk of network driver code, it was unimpressed.

Is there some sort of index file or folder structure I need to impose on this floppy to make it an officially sanctioned Debian driver installation disk? Is an MS-DOS filesystem acceptable, or do I need to mkfs the floppy with ext2, or something Debian will prefer?

I think I'd start over using the Debian network installation disk. Then it would surely have to see the Ethernet card or fail to install. You would also be getting the latest version of every file on the system.

Finish the installation, ignore the bit about not finding your network card. The installed kernel may have the driver, and if it doesn't, you can still install the necessary tools from the DVD and build the driver.

Thanks for the advice.

I'll take a look at that network installation disk. It probably doesn't have the e1000e driver included, but it might have enough other drivers included for me to figure-out how to shoe-horn this module into the collection.

Come to think of it, perhaps I can inject the e1000e module into the regular installation .ISO image.

Sadly, the e1000e driver does not get included later in the installation process. I plugged an old e100 NIC into the same machine and installed the complete Debian with all updates, but nothing regarding my faster NIC came aboard.

I'll keep you posted with my progress in case someone else has the same problem any time soon. (Soon, meaning BEFORE the e1000e module joins the mainstream content of a standard Debian build.)

I looked around the regular installation disc and I couldn't find any e100 or e1000 stuff to point me in the direction I might be able to insert e1000e stuff.

I guess my next step is to look at that network installation disc.

Just throw a cheap NIC in the PC so the network install to work, then download the e1000e source and compile it afterwards, then pull the cheap NIC out of the machine and use the intel GIG NIC from there forward.

No reason to over complicate matters.


aptitude install module-assistant build-essential
m-a update
m-a prepare
wget http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/s...0.2.9.5.tar.gz
tar -xzvf e1000e-0.2.9.5.tar.gz
cd e1000e-0.2.9.5/src
make install
modprobe e1000e


then I would edit the /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules file to remove the entries for the NICs, shutdown, pull the temp NIC out of the machine. Boot the machine to regenerate the persistent UDEV rules so the intel NIC now appears as eth0. Done.

Took me less time to do that procedure, than for you to Google how-to add that driver to the install iso...

I get an error when I do the "make install" instruction:
, but moving forward, my network card now works! Thank you very much.

I think I understand everything you told me to do, except for the "m-a" instructions. I guess that's what the man pages are for....
-dP

m-a = module-assistant

Basically when you run the m-a prepare command it looks at your system, at the running kernel, then goes out automatically grabs the appropriate source files needed to compile modules against your kernel and installs it.. I find it's easier to suggest the module assistant command than to try and explain to someone how to figure out their running kernel, get the appropriate source package, and install it properly since module assistant automates that entire procedure in one or two short commands.

Sweet! As a SlackWare veteran, I'm used to having to find all that stuff by myself.

Module assistant can also be used to install certain modules you can view the entire list just by running m-a

some examples of modules that canbe installed using module assistant.
just fyi..

m-a update
m-a prepare
m-a a-i ndiswrapper



m-a update
m-a prepare
m-a a-i nvidia
aptitude install nvidia-glx



m-a update
m-a prepare
m-a a-i madwifi


etc..
when you specify the module to install it will automatically grab the source package for that module , download it, compile it, and install it..

"the Debian way"

makes it easy to update those modules if you update the kernel..