Re: Network installer lacks Netgear wifi support
Hello Stefan, Thanks for the write-up, I only had a vague idea of what usb-modeswitch was, and it helped getting a clear view. Stefan Lippers-Hollmann s@gmx.de (2015-05-10): If you would add Netgear wireless support to 8.0, 7.x and 6.x, I'm sure many users would appreciate it. I can't speak for release and d-i teams, but adding a new udeb for usb-modeswitch and d-i integration for already released Debian versions doesn't sound very likely. However you can ask the usb-modeswitch maintainers to support this for stretch/ Debian 9~, by filing a bugreport against src:usb-modeswitch and suggesting them to add a udeb to their package. I haven't spent much time thinking about this but it seems fair to sum it up this way: I'm happy to consider any changes to d-i for stable that fall into the “reasonable” category. It's hard to say anything about a potential usb-modeswitch addition (to jessie) without having the work done in unstable already, but the extra udeb(s) are indeed somewhat worrisome. The fact that hardware manufacturers are playing the dumb “let's reuse the same IDs with different chipsets” game isn't much encouraging either. All in all, it looks like we aren't exactly on the “reasonable” side with this topic. I'm adding the usb-modeswitch maintainer to the recipients of this mail to possibly get some comment from his side (I know you're on this list but let's not rely on that. :) More context in [1,2]). 1. https://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2015/05/msg00291.html 2. https://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2015/05/msg00293.html Mraw, KiBi. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Network installer lacks Netgear wifi support
Hi On 2015-05-11, Cyril Brulebois wrote: Hello Stefan, Thanks for the write-up, I only had a vague idea of what usb-modeswitch was, and it helped getting a clear view. [...] Just to add some further context. Device manufacturers can apply this modeswitching dance (supported by usb-modeswitch) to just about any USB device (-class), like scanners/ printers, projectors, smartphones, wlan cards, etc., but it's most common for 3g, wimax or LTE cards. Looking through usb-modeswitch-data, I can only identify about half a dozen USB IDs for USB wlan cards among its database (and none of them belonging to devices that are still on sale, well perhaps except for one (AVM FRITZ!WLAN Stick N v2, based on the Ralink RT5572 wireless chipset)). [...] It's hard to say anything about a potential usb-modeswitch addition (to jessie) without having the work done in unstable already, but the extra udeb(s) are indeed somewhat worrisome. [...] usb-modeswitch-data[1] would be required as well - or at least a tiny excerpt of its USB ID database (unfortunately one can't filter this for a specific device class, like wlan cards, automatically). So the potential udeb would either have to ship all USB IDs, or a handcrafted excerpt of wlan devices[2]. From a purely technical point of view, for the strict subset of already known wlan cards requiring modeswitching, it might also be possible to emulate usb-modeswitch by just using /usr/bin/eject (respectively busybox' corresponding eject applet) on the usb-storage device node. However this would be quite painful to maintain for Debian/ d-i, but the list of devices is small, currently not expected to grow (at least not significantly) and all of the known specimens appear to use StandardEject=1. I'm strongly recommending against this[3], but it might be possible to accomplish with some udev rules and a (likely) tiny shell script - or just executed manually[4] by the affected users. Regards Stefan Lippers-Hollmann [1] Or perhaps usb-modeswitch-data-packed [2] Or parse usb-modeswitch-data's USB ID database and cross reference those to the kernel modules - possible, but not pretty. [3] because of the maintenance effort required for a Debian-only workaround, something the upstream supported usb-modeswitch abstracts nicely. [4] eject /dev/sdX on a free tty, where X stands for the usb-storage device node provided by the wlan card in question. pgpNyc9lAyHEi.pgp Description: Digitale Signatur von OpenPGP
Re: Network installer lacks Netgear wifi support
Hi On 2015-05-09, JohnT wrote: I bought a newer 64-bit pc to replace this old 32-bit system and want to install Debian on it. I knew that 6.0.10 didn't seem to have Netgear wireless-through-USB support, so I tried 7.6.0 and 8.0 and found that they didn't recognize the Netgear hardware either. The 8.0 installer's hardware There is no such thing as a Netgear wireless-through-USB device, there are dozens withs vastly different internals. Therefore you'd need to specify your particular device much more accurate before anyone can help you. Even giving the model name is often inconclusive, as multiple vendors (including Netgear) tend to switch horses between different hardware revisions of the same model, but lsusb combined with the model name might give an approximation (even that isn't 100% sure, as multiple vendors tend to re-use USB IDs for different hardware). detection reported my wireless device as a mass storage device, as I recall. Netgear USB wireless devices have been around for several years and are commonly used. I bought mine at Walmart. Several USB wlan cards actually do contain a tiny usb-storage partition, which often contains drivers for windows and sometimes also configuration data. These devices need a modeswitch to turn of the usb-storage partition to free the USB endpoint and then turn on the wlan functionality. Some drivers can do this modeswitch on their own, without userspace assisting, like e.g. ar5523, zd1211rw et al - others need a usb-modeswitch to accomplish this in userspace instead (e.g. some ar9170/ carl9170 devices). I found that Ubuntu works with my Netgear device, though I am having problems finding a mirror that still has that longterm support version The usb-modeswitch package doesn't provide a udeb, to hook itself into d-i (the Debian installer), therefore affected wlan cards requiring this kind of special handholding won't be supported automatically (or at all for the time being) - you might be lucky by trying eject on the usb-storage device node though; make sure to have the needed firmware available before trying this (manual) mode-switch. available. And Mageia 4.1 works fine with Netgear, but there are some things in their software selection I don't like. I would rather be using just a simple upgrade of 6.0.10, which I find very satisfactory in most respects, better than 7.x. I'm rather confident that the installed Debian system will support your device just fine - once you install its firmware and the usb-modeswitch package; debian-live based live media might as well, provided you install usb-modeswitch and firmware before connecting your wlan card. What won't work right now is doing a (partial-) netinstall using such a wlan card. If you would add Netgear wireless support to 8.0, 7.x and 6.x, I'm sure many users would appreciate it. I can't speak for release and d-i teams, but adding a new udeb for usb-modeswitch and d-i integration for already released Debian versions doesn't sound very likely. However you can ask the usb-modeswitch maintainers to support this for stretch/ Debian 9~, by filing a bugreport against src:usb-modeswitch and suggesting them to add a udeb to their package. Disclaimer: While I have access to several wlan cards doing an internal modeswitch inside the kernel module, I don't own any requiring external help via usb-modeswitch myself and therefore won't be able to test this. Regards Stefan Lippers-Hollmann pgpPlsnlEo6Sd.pgp Description: Digitale Signatur von OpenPGP
Network installer lacks Netgear wifi support
I bought a newer 64-bit pc to replace this old 32-bit system and want to install Debian on it. I knew that 6.0.10 didn't seem to have Netgear wireless-through-USB support, so I tried 7.6.0 and 8.0 and found that they didn't recognize the Netgear hardware either. The 8.0 installer's hardware detection reported my wireless device as a mass storage device, as I recall. Netgear USB wireless devices have been around for several years and are commonly used. I bought mine at Walmart. I found that Ubuntu works with my Netgear device, though I am having problems finding a mirror that still has that longterm support version available. And Mageia 4.1 works fine with Netgear, but there are some things in their software selection I don't like. I would rather be using just a simple upgrade of 6.0.10, which I find very satisfactory in most respects, better than 7.x. If you would add Netgear wireless support to 8.0, 7.x and 6.x, I'm sure many users would appreciate it. Thank you for your time. John Tellefson Salina, Kansas USA -- http://www.mozilla.org Firefox browser, Thunderbird email, Seamonkey all-in-one, Sunbird calendar and more. Free secure open-source software for Windows, Linux, Mac OS and other operating systems -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/554e7dd7.50...@att.net
Re: Network installer lacks Netgear wifi support
On Sat, 2015-05-09 at 16:36 -0500, JohnT wrote: I bought a newer 64-bit pc to replace this old 32-bit system and want to install Debian on it. I knew that 6.0.10 didn't seem to have Netgear wireless-through-USB support, so I tried 7.6.0 and 8.0 and found that they didn't recognize the Netgear hardware either. The 8.0 installer's hardware detection reported my wireless device as a mass storage device, as I recall. Netgear USB wireless devices have been around for several years and are commonly used. I bought mine at Walmart. Netgear uses many different wifi chips from different manufacturers; you'll have to be a lot more specific than that before we can even work out what driver is needed. I found that Ubuntu works with my Netgear device, though I am having problems finding a mirror that still has that longterm support version available. And Mageia 4.1 works fine with Netgear, but there are some things in their software selection I don't like. I would rather be using just a simple upgrade of 6.0.10, which I find very satisfactory in most respects, better than 7.x. If you would add Netgear wireless support to 8.0, 7.x and 6.x, I'm sure many users would appreciate it. It is likely that we will add more hardware support in a 8.x point release, but not for 6.0.x or 7.x. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Theory and practice are closer in theory than in practice. - John Levine, moderator of comp.compilers signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
