I pretty much used ndiswrapper in the 2005-2010 era. There's always old school ways, but it really helps to get the network working right off the bat. Until then you're jumping computers or dual booting to look up problems and download things, then turning around and trying to do them from memory since you don't yet have your network working.

packages.debian.org

I always found that slightly useful for when a network wasn't readily available and a full compliment of discs wasn't already downloaded and burned. Although with more than one device at your beckon call and non-network ways like usb sticks to transfer files these days. The number of hoops one needs to jump if any is far fewer now than then.

ok. i did this. and yes, i have a Ethernet connection available. doesn't it still require a driver for the NIC card though?

If you want your non-free wireless to work you will need to install the firmware for it. Use your cable connection start Synaptic and install the packages suggested above. Reboot without the cable connected and see if your wireless connects.

mispost

I agree and that is usually what I say to do infact I said it in about post 13 I think. Gdebi or dpkg -i *.deb will install them.

I noticed that OP had access to wired connection so withdrew my statement, although I didn't see a responce from OP as to lspci inquiry. I may have just missed it though. Just saw that OP has

No you didn't miss is it there are a few things asked for that a response for is still forthcoming. It makes things go slowly but we are working through it anyway.

Ethernet drivers are well supported. And are almost always included with your default kernel image. I've been known to use a wireless router (stand alone device) in repeater mode to DHCP with ethernet for the network connection on an initial install. It's just so easy to do, and you can position the stand alone device for optimal signal strength. Plus they're cheaper than most PCI or even USB network devices these days.

I think that a lot of trouble could have been spared if you (sniper8752) would have read the threads carefully. My post was about #5 pointing exactly out that you may have trouble with the wireless drivers.

ADVICE 1 @ sniper
Take note! The debian installer does a heck of a job and I'm pretty sure that at one point it came up with a warning that "Broadcom xxxx" driver blabla is not available but needed to setup the system and if you had an external media for the driver. Always put down a note about these warnings.

ADVICE 2 @ sniper
Volounteer information before asking, such as: "Trying to install Debian 6.0 Squeeze from a single CDROM image I have downloaded from debian.org ...". This would help a great deal.

ADVICE 3 @ all
Get the information straight BEFORE volounteering any help. It's of no use to point to installs using contrib and non-free if the install has not been set up as such from the beginnning. Because that means that we already have an installation. But it helps pointing to such source of information as lspci. I always ask about the level of proficiency before giving further details. IMHO should have been the case here.

ADVICE 4 @ sniper
Please at least try to find out a bit for yourself. Linux in this is nicely packaged but some things are DIY. This means read. And for programs you use and don't know the name of. Try having a look at the starting icon or maybe at the taskbar icon or even at the "help" and then "about" menu point.

About wifi drivers. Despite linux supporting a lot of cards out of the box I have hit only 1 out of 6 laptop installs where the driver was loadable from the installer. All others I had to get a manufacturer driver or from other repositories.

A bit more about information gathering on linux - may be helpful
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ommands-35258/

I think you are pushing some boundaries here. You have one other post in this thread and, with all due respect, it was pretty useless. Pointing him to the HCl withouu explaining anything was not helpful.

It does do a good job but he didn't need any external media and from what he has been posting he wouldn;t have known where to get the firmware anyway.

Give the noobie a break. I'm sure we have all left out information before.

You always ask do you? How come I don't see that until now? It is of every use point to contrib and non-free, purely because the required firmware is in non-free, and considering he has a wired connection he would need these setup so he can download the firmware.

Before you jump down his throat about this maybe ask him what he has read and what profficiency levels he has.

Gee I'm nearly the exact opposite.

This was useful.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for pointing that out but I'm not taking all of the critics.

My first post was aiming exactly at that plus adding some information. Where can you get more information about installing if not in the HCL?

Ah - but I have never gotten any of the information on which to act and could therefore not even continue to ask.

All the questions have proven to be important just a bit further down...
... but then you learn best by erring - don't we?

On the others - how do you explain something to somebody without hitting his feelings (or those of others) when the poster completely ignores all questions asked for a purpose by a moderator, you and me. The three of us never got answers to our questions. So a bit of shaking seemed appropriate.

But then, maybe I should work on my diplomatic writing skills in English as a foreign language as well.

I'm trying to get information in order to be able to answer and to help. Some users also simply don't get that and the discussion here is kind of left alone without proper information.

Thanks for the positive on the tutorial - This is my approach to a reproach - I take the time to write a reference.

@k3lt01 Criticism taken nonetheless.

Wish you a nice week-end

I kind of bypass the need for most of the traditional install methods these days.

http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...apds03.html.en

Basically using debootstrap to install debian into a chroot. Be sure to set a root password, which isn't listed in that guide. Or other administrative things like adding a user, setting a hostname, timezone, and stuff.

# passwd

Then I exit the chroot, tar the install location. Setup the new boot device with a filesystem. Extract the tar to it. Modify the /etc/fstab file to match it's new home. Pre-setup grub on it. Change my current desktops grub configuration to add an option to boot the new linux. Boot it. Once booted to it, I install grub to it. And boot again to make sure using it's grub, works. This is particularly nice for usb storage devices as most of the writes of the installation occur elsewhere. And you can take your liveUSB linux with you to goodwill to get a laptop that plays well with your existing linux.

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You can do pretty much all of the installation of a distro in the chroot. Like installing any quirky drivers you might need for network support. And if you don't have an existing linux install, you can do this from a liveCD version of linux. You may not be able to configure everything on the system before actually booting it, like Xorg. But it's a nice option if your final destination is a limited write usb storage device.

Not noob friendly enough in my opinion. More so since I'm not currently aware of a post install debian admin tool. The debian-installer way seems to be live disc specific. And the base-config way of old seems to be user-mode-linux specific now. Which leaves me setting things up old school. Like the network with iwconfig, ifconfig, route, ip, iw, and everything else that implies. Fortunately I've been around a while and have most of that in bash scripts.