A day of failure with Debian
Posted: August 30, 2010 Filed under: Broadcom, Debian, HP ProBook 4510s, Keryx | Tags: broadband, broadcom, debian, framebuffer, hp probook, keryx, zte 12 Comments »Today, I tried installing Debian on my HP ProBook 4510S. Three times.
Obviously, I failed. On the first try, I got the wrong CD image (Lenny instead of Squeeze) and only realized that after I installed it. On the second try, I assigned the 500MB /dev/sda1 to / instead of /boot, which resulted in a cataclysmic Debian-style out-of-space dpkg error. Something I got about four times with Ubuntu on my Eee PC, but that’s another story. And on the third try, I almost got it done and even did an offline install of the Broadcom STA driver using Keryx, dpkg and module-assistant. However, it failed to detect any networks, citing a read error 
Then I gave up and decided to install Linux Mint 9 LXDE. I just burnt it on a CD-RW and I’ll install it as soon as I finish this post 
Anyway, here’s my “detailed report” on installing Debian Squeeze:
- You don’t get an Internet connection during the install, so you have to download the 600+ MB CD1 image instead of the 180 MB netinst one.
- The first CD image for Squeeze doesn’t even come with wireless-tools packaged.
- You absolutely need Keryx to do any kind of offline Debian install. And the guide here.
- It’s probably easier to do all this if you install GNOME. But it’s a pain to remove in my experience, so I didn’t even try that.
- The framebuffer made my eyes bleed. 800×600 on a widescreen display? No thank you.
- Doing an offline install of the Broadcom STA driver on Debian-based distros is mostly impossible.
The Broadcom driver has been annoying me since I got the ProBook. The only distro on which I managed to manually install it is Fedora. On Ubuntu, I now connect to the Internet using my ZTE MF110 modem and use Hardware Drivers (jockey?) to automatically install it. On a side note, I couldn’t do that with Kubuntu, because KNetworkManager is too buggy to let me connect to networks that do not support 2G data (which Digi Mobil Romania is).
The conclusion? I probably won’t install Debian on this machine again too soon.
[...] I’m wondering: should I keep Ubuntu, or give Debian a shot again? After all, I did fix the framebuffer problem. Or maybe LMDE, which, by the way, K.Mandla recently [...]
It sounds like you just weren’t prepared to do this, if you have no ethernet cable available and were doing the partitions incorrectly. FWIW, I’ve never had a successful Sqeeze install, always going with Lenny, changing the repos post-install, and dist-upgrading my system. I think that the Squeeze installers aren’t working yet but I could be wrong as my previous Squeeze install failures were a few months ago, but I think I had everything else that I may have needed all ready to go.
Did you load the firmware on there so that the installer could do anything with your wireless chipset?
The chipset is a BCM4312, which is not supported by the b43 driver as far as I know. The Broadcom STA (wl) driver supports the BCM4312 and doesn’t need separate firmware, but installing it is really tricky (I don’t know how Jockey does that).
It is supported, although there are still some issues with DMA support. Let’s say that it mostly works. All you need is the firmware. firmware-b43-lpphy-installer can install it automatically for you, or you can use b43-fwcutter for a manual approach:
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#device_firmware_installation
The permissions error is a chmod away.
It’s a bug, but easily fixed.
…but I was root. Does the bug affect root too?
I had HP ProBook 4510S until recently, and experienced no problems you mentioned with Debian Squeeze. My colleagues are using Ubuntu and Kubuntu on 4510S without issues, too.
I now use Xubuntu on it and it works without a hitch.
hello,
Your HP is equipped with an Ethernet interface: it was enough to connect your laptop to the network with this interface and then simply doing a netinstall! why make things complicated when it can be easy!
as easy as installing a debian than ubuntu with stability and more!
@ + Petitbob
The only Ethernet cable I have doesn’t work anymore
[...] Mint 9 LXDE. I just burnt it on a CD-RW and I’ll install it as soon as I finish this post More here On the first try, I got the wrong CD image (Lenny instead of Squeeze) and only realized that after [...]